


Once Upon A Whim

by Cacoethes (EvenEcho)



Category: Fairy Tales & Related Fandoms, Labyrinth (1986), Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Backstory, Canon Rewrite, Crazy Mad Hatter | Jefferson, Dark Magic, Emotional Manipulation, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Evil Queen | Regina Mills-centric, F/F, Fae Magic, Immortality, Jareth (Labyrinth) Backstory, Land Without Magic (Once Upon a Time), M/M, Mad Hatter | Jefferson-centric, Magic, Major AU, Non-Human Humanoid Society, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Owl Form Jareth, POV Alternating, POV Emma Swan, POV Evil Queen | Regina Mills, POV Lesbian Character, POV Mad Hatter | Jefferson, The Enchanted Forest (Once Upon a Time), The Underground/Labyrinth, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-17
Updated: 2020-09-27
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:48:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 27,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25946113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EvenEcho/pseuds/Cacoethes
Summary: Regina Mills is greeted by Emma Swan who happened to be dragged into town by her son, Henry. Instead of forcing the 'threat' of Emma Swan away, Regina opens her home, and unintentionally (sort of) her heart to The Saviour.This is when Emma is enchanted and irrevocably in love with Regina Mills before she learns she's the Evil Queen, and despite this, she stays because Regina has been nothing but kind to her, cared for her. Misguided in some attempts, yes, but never out of a place of sheer cruelty for cruelty's sake.Jefferson's portal of doors had many places most didn't even think real, but one of them had magic, and the Goblin King had a kind of magic that nobody, not even someone like Rumpelstiltskin, could claim to have mastered. This is an issue, but it's also not.Emma makes a stir, so Jefferson stirs back. Regina and Mr. Gold play dirty, and Jareth has no loyalty. Also, immortality is a 'thing.'
Relationships: Evil Queen | Regina Mills/Emma Swan, Mad Hatter | Jefferson/Rumplestiltskin | Mr. Gold, Mad Hatter | Jefferson/The Goblin King | Jareth
Comments: 6
Kudos: 16





	1. The Stranger

**Author's Note:**

> Alright, so a little warning here, there's a lot of changes -- major changes. I watched the first season and half of the second, and I've seen a scattered bit of episodes when my little brother binged the series, but I realized that casting conflicts, monetary deficiencies and probably a whole lot of other things went into the whole OUAT thing, considering it was a TV show on a major network meant for families and stuff too. This realization reminded me that nothing that happens on screen, can't be changed in the form of a story via words. I have no actors to bother with, I have no need for money, I literally hold the power of canon and beyond-fiction within my grubby hands. How could such a great power be denied? 
> 
> I was obligated, in a way, to write a version of the story that made more sense to me, although there are a few canonical scenes/chapters, after Season One, and a bit of the other seasons information all thrown in there from what I could gather via the Wiki page, it's almost all a free fall. I sort of like the chaos, the fact that nothing is really set in stone at any given time (maybe a concept the characters will deal with later, as I'm pretty sure they did in the show... something about an Author. I suppose I can relate to this vague character, but not really since I have no idea who or what they did beyond the tidbit that it existed in canon). 
> 
> So, be warned for that. And I'll try to make them as 'in character' as I can, but I picture Jefferson way different. Sebastian Stan, yes, but the writing for him, I have an idea. 
> 
> Also, one night I decided that his hat could get him anywhere, essentially. Or anywhere with a door, and I went to other fictional universes to try and find a place to put him because I wanted him to be attached to many different realms but also, none at all as well. He's chaos, he's not going to be stuck anywhere, well, until he literally is. So, I brought everyone's glitter-covered, Bowie-bulged Goblin King, Jareth and the Underground or his Labyrinth. I also go into detail about that world and whatnot, so yeah. 
> 
> TL;DR - I'm have the Power, and I used it. Behold the beginning of my masterpiece (aka, that one half-cocked idea that I got attached to despite not really being part of the fandom).

She was somewhere between ‘done’ and ‘exhausted.’ She hadn’t expected anything like this, how could someone expect something like this? Complicated and annoying, things she didn’t like all that much. She disliked recognizing the issues and dealing with them even more than knowing they existed. She knew there were crazy things, sure, but unless there was cash in the cards, she wasn’t ready to do anything, especially not for some slightly-unhinged child that seemed to probably be her own -- biologically. 

Back to that. She had a child, yes, she had given him away for a good reason. She knew from the deepest parts of her heart that she couldn’t care for him like he deserved, she couldn’t give him a good life and heaven knows she’d fuck him up just as bad as she was. Then again, with all this nonsense about fairytales maybe she could do a better job. The kid had a therapist, right? She understood the desire to get out of the real world, to just live in fantastical realms in books or movies or games, but she also knew that getting trapped in your head was never pleasant in the long run, it hurt more to leave fantasy land than to suffer through reality, which made everything twenty times harder. 

The town, as she drove, seemed almost dead. Yeah, there were people out and stuff, but it looked… there weren’t any other cars actually driving, although plenty were parked, and the center of the city had a big, old, creepy clock with boarded up windows and it just gave her bad vibes. No matter what the kid said, she learned to trust those vibes, they saved her life a few times at least. 

“Okay, we’re here. Address, kid?” 

“Right, I live at forty-four not-telling-you street.” 

It had been a long day, and she pulled up to the curb abruptly, glad the kid was forced to wear a seatbelt. She sighed and got out of the car. She needed to stretch her legs, or better yet, she needed to get some fresh air because her own discomfort was suffocating her, the kid reminded her of all her insecurities, and it wasn’t his fault, but damn if it didn’t suck. 

She looked up at the clock. It wasn’t ticking. What sort of town was this? How did their city clock, the focal point of the little town, not get repaired immediately. Isn’t that an important thing for things, like sentimentality? 

“I know for a fact it’s not eight-fifteen, it’s probably later, so look, we gotta get you home. I don’t want to get in trouble, and your mother’s probably worried sick--” 

“The clock? You noticed the clock? Of course it’s been stuck, nobody but me grows here, everyone else is frozen in time. It’s part of the Evil Queen’s curse!” The kid, Henry, was purposely beating around the bush, she could tell, but she knew how to handle this. 

“Hey,” she said. She got back in the car. “How about we got to your house, make sure that your mom knows you’re okay, and then you can tell me all about your stories. Deal?” She held her hand out and watched as Henry clutched his book to his chest with one arm before reaching out and shaking her hand. 

“Deal,” he said. She made sure he was buckled up and started driving. She followed his directions since she had no idea about this town, she hadn’t even heard of it before, which wasn’t uncommon, but still it seemed… odd enough and small enough to make a convenient run away place for bail jumpers and the likes. 

It wasn’t until she parked and followed Henry up the ornate stone path, passing an apple tree and knowing exactly what the kid was going to say about that (because everyone had seen  _ Snow White and the Seven Dwarves _ as children, even the odd ones out like her) but she didn’t want to bring it up and have him stop them from getting inside. She knocked on the door and the door was opened by a regal woman. There was some scruffy dude behind her, but that wasn’t what she was staring at, she stared at the woman grabbing Henry in her arms and hugging him. Why did the kid go looking for her? He had a nice house, and his mom seemed to truly love him. Finally, the woman stood up straight and the man slid out of the door, standing to her side, behind her, which set her on alert because she definitely didn’t trust strangers and especially not strangers with a gun in his belt and a star badge. She worked with the police, vaguely, not really, but close enough and she didn’t like them, she liked money and she was good at finding the truth, she was just making the best with the hand she had been dealt. Weren’t they all? 

“Who’s this?” the woman asked, motioning towards her with soft hands and perfectly manicured nails. Damn, she was one of those women that Emma, once upon a time, would have actually liked to be with, or rather befriend and hope for the best, but her and relationships of any sort never worked out well for anyone. Just another reason she wanted the kid to stay with his mom, the woman who raised him and seemed to love him. 

“She’s my  _ real _ mom,” Henry said. Emma immediately withheld the sigh and eye roll because that was the worst way to be introduced to the adoptive mother, that was like telling a child they were the least favourite of the bunch. 

“Is she now?” the woman asked, although it seemed to be more like a threat to her. She felt even less comfortable. Regina smiled at the kid. “You have homework, and we’re talking about this later.” He opened his mouth to protest but she snapped her fingers and pointed to what looked like stairs inside the house. The kid huffed and stomped inside. The sheriff followed promising to make sure he was safe and dandy, which was irritating because she did a lot of things but she didn’t hurt kids, ever. Or at least she tried to avoid it as best she could and had so far stayed clean of that sort of sin. 

The woman, Regina Mills the  _ Mayor _ of Storybrooke (because she didn’t have enough enemies as it was), invited her inside and offered her scotch. That wasn’t even close to what she would need to get through this trainwreck of a day, but she could at least accept the drink and try to convince the woman that she honestly didn’t want to take Henry, that he was her kid, because he was. She didn’t want a kid, she knew she couldn’t take care of one, she didn’t have the resources or the stability needed for that. 

“So, how did he find me?” she asked, hopefully conveying how much of a surprise it had been. 

“I’m not quite sure. When I adopted him he was only twenty-two days old. The records had been sealed, and I was informed that it was a closed deal. The birth mother didn’t wish for any contact.” Regina took a seat in the room just off the foyer, done beautifully in black and whites as well as cool gray tones which made it seem less Cruella De Ville and more royal, honestly, which was sort of funny considering that Henry seemed convinced these people were all fairy tale characters. She took a seat on a lounge chair that Regina motioned to and crossed her legs, trying her hardest to not come off as a brute. She didn’t want to make a bad impression on a pretty lady, even if she doubted she’d ever see her again. 

“That’s the truth. The birth mother--  _ I _ didn’t and don’t want to impose on him or you. I can’t raise kids, I simply can’t do it. It’s horrible, but it’s the truth.” She realized she had quickly drank what had been poured far too quickly and just held it on her kneecap because she was nervous. What did people do in situations like this? She looked down at the glass and hoped that she hadn’t just made herself seem like the worst person in the world. How could she be so callous? It was her kid, but he wasn’t her kid, not really. 

“Is there a father?” Regina asked, her tone was tight but her voice held the same importance and demand that Emma actually saw as a bit interesting. Then again, she was the mayor, she had to deal with people all the time and her house was definitely nicer than the ones she had seen otherwise, but still there was something…  _ powerful _ there, something that didn’t quite make sense. 

“Technically, yes, but he’s not around. Probably doesn’t even know about the kid.” 

“His name is Henry.” 

“Yeah, Henry. Sorry, I’ll try to remember that. Like I said, I  _ really _ can’t raise kids. It’s just--” 

“It’s just not something you can do.” Regina finished her sentence with something hostile, but also, not really. It was weird, and maybe she was looking into things a bit too deeply, but this place was sort of creepy and she wanted to leave, but now she was curious. Was there a cult or something? 

Before anything else could be said, the Sheriff came downstairs and gave Regina the good news: Henry wasn’t hurt or otherwise uncomfortable but was tired out from his adventurous day. Regina dismissed him like a principal with a particularly irritating student. She knew that feeling intimately because she had typically been that student. 

A silence passed and she tried not to make eye contact, but she could feel Regina staring at her, sizing her up before the woman shifted, uncrossing her legs and setting the tumbler on the table and sitting forward. Finally, Emma couldn’t help but to give in. She leaned forward, hesitant and ready to be given a harsh lecture and told to stay the hell away from her family. The woman didn’t speak though, she just continued to stare up and down her form, like she was trying to find something. 

“I’m sorry about Henry today. I don’t know what’s gotten into him, really.” There was no hostility now, there was no demanding and imperious tone, there was only the honest words of a tired woman. 

“Kids do weird things; they have rough times. It happens.” 

“You have to understand,” Regina said. For some reason Emma got the disturbing feeling that Regina was somehow trying to reassure her. She left no time, though, and Emma was forced to sit silently when she really wanted to let her know she understood and was more concerned about her than the kid because he was a kid, yeah he had done something dangerous, but he didn’t seem to have the capacity to fear the unknown yet, and Regina seemed like a wise woman, she had to have been horribly afraid. “Since I adopted him, things have gotten more difficult. I love him, I wouldn’t trade him for the world, but sometimes it’s difficult to handle everything at once. You have a job, correct?” 

“Yeah, I, uh, keep busy.” 

Regina shook her head slightly, “Imagine having another one. Being a single parent is a job all on its own. So, am I strict? Of course, I want to push him to be the best he can be, as a mother his success is my most important goal, but I also have duties to the community that aren’t as lenient as I would like. I don’t think wanting the best for him makes me evil, but I know that recently he’s begun to believe certain things…” 

“Like the uh, whole fairy tale thing?” she asked. Right, so Regina knew about it too if her shocked-morphing-into-exhausted-and-upset sort of expression meant anything. How did she keep her lipstick so perfect? Nothing on her teeth, and despite it being well into the night Regina’s makeup was still perfect. It was almost like magic. Oh, she really had drunk the kool aid, she needed to get out while she still could. Losing her marbles wasn’t in the plan, she didn’t have health insurance to cover any of it honestly. 

“He mentioned that?” 

“Yeah. He thinks everyone in town is some sort of character or something,” she said with a smile. Kids will be kids, even if they were early escapists in Henry’s case. 

“I’m so sorry. Don’t worry about that, I think I can handle his  _ obsession _ . Or rather I know someone who can help. I just can’t seem to part him from it. He thinks my affinity for apple pancakes makes me the Evil Queen,” Regina said with a smirk and a shake of her head. She was extremely dismissive of the issue, like she expected this, which was understandable. She could definitely relate to that sort of exasperation at people with unhealthy coping skills roping their families into their madness, although she knew this by association considering she didn’t really get the mother and father experience. 

“Hey, no worries. That being said, it’s late, and you probably have work tomorrow, so I should head out.” 

“Wait,” Regina said, standing up. Regina’s eyes grew large and she set her tumbler on the coffee table. She looked at the ground and then to the left of Emma’s shoulder. “I mean, you’re correct, it’s late. There’s a place, Granny’s, it’s right down the way. I mean, I understand if you’d like to leave but--” 

“No, thank you. I think I’ll head over there. Maybe I’ll see you tomorrow,” Emma said. She smiled and she watched as Regina smiled and then forced herself to frown and give a tight nod. Now that was a bag of snakes that she really didn’t know or want to figure out. Sure, she was curious, but she wasn’t going to pry into Regina’s life or try to figure out why she was so… bizarre, even if it was in the best way possible. She waved, setting the tumbler on the coffee table, before heading out. 

Pulling the creaking doors open on her yellow bug, she turned to give the wonderful estate one last look-over and saw Henry staring straight at her from the second story window. His eyes were large, and his mouth was set in the opposite of the smile he had earlier. She offered a little wave and watched him turn and walk away from the window before getting in her car and going to Granny’s. 

Maybe she’d stay for breakfast and really see Regina again. Or maybe she wouldn’t and she’d be on her merry way, no matter what would happen, she needed a whole helluva lot of sleep because physically she wasn’t worn out but emotionally she was running on fumes and nothing beside a nice sleep and a shower could offer at the moment. Her stuff wasn’t exactly with her, but she’d figure something out. 

Was it sort of odd that she actually hoped to run into Regina and Henry again? She knew Henry had to feel betrayed by her dismissal, she would have felt so if they were in each others’ places, but couldn’t he see that Regina loved him? And Regina was just, well, she seemed like the single mom who was also a power woman who ran everything and then fixed everything else so she could run that too. She got the impression she was a workaholic, but maybe she was way off. 

***

It was like every other morning. Regina would wake up promptly at six, she would take a shower and get dressed, she would wake Henry up at seven, and he would eat breakfast at seven-fifteen, and at seven thirty she saw him off to the bus. She walked around Storybrooke, stopping to get a cup of coffee. She ran into Emma at Granny’s, and it honestly wasn’t a surprise. She may or may not have felt something peculiar about Emma. 

For twenty-eight years, she hadn’t felt magic from anyone, not even Gold, but then Emma shows up, and she can feel a spark, like a tingling along her skin, and immediately she recognized her as a threat, but the longer she spoke with her, the more she realized that Emma had no idea there was anything different about her, special. Like Henry, they were special, and she knew it. She hated the fact that Emma was supposed to ruin her ‘happy ever after,’ but Rumplestiltskin claimed to be omnipotent, that Emma would be the downfall of Storybrooke. She knew otherwise. The future could change should the unlikely outcome replace a sturdy destiny. All she had to do was play the game, and with everything she was planning to win. 

She ordered her coffee and pancakes because they were admittedly delicious, and waited took a sip of her coffee to hide the curl of her lips when Emma descended the back stairs in rumpled clothes and her hair tied back in the messiest ponytail she had ever seen. Without thought she waved for Emma to sit over with her, and Emma joined her, a soft and soothing radiance blossoming over her person. Yes, this was going to be wonderful, all she had to do is exactly the opposite of what was expected of her. Hearing the ‘prophecy’ was more like a guide on what not to do, really, it was the destruction manual of destiny that she had read over and over in the hopes to break through the fates, and alas here she was rewriting history, again. 

“Good morning,” she said. “Would you like some breakfast? A coffee?” 

“A coffee’d be great, thanks.” 

As Ruby poured Emma’s cup of coffee, Regina had never felt so scrutinized by the people of Storybrooke, and it was unsettling to say the least. She set her empty mug down and pushed it forward. Thankfully, Ruby turned to look away and she refilled her mug before scampering off to go take orders. Emma poured two sugars in her coffee and stirred it by circling it in her hand before taking a hesitant sip. 

Only as Emma looked over at her did she realize she was once again staring. Seeing as it hadn’t been mentioned, she continued to do so, intrigued by her movements, her actions. Mundane and unknowing. Gaining her as an ally would be a little more difficult than she thought considering that there were quite a few loopholes in the curse that a certain few former sorcerors would likely take advantage of, but she knew that she had to play things safe, play things close to her chest, and hopefully close to her chest Emma would soon be. 

“I hope you slept well,” she said, pushing her empty plate forward to be gathered. Emma just nodded her head, her eyes glossy and not focused just yet. She doctored her fresh cup. “I did some thinking last night, and I would like to preface my offer with the fact that you are free to leave anytime you like, I just felt an overwhelming urge to offer Henry someone else to have when I’m away. He’s already quite attached, and I have more than enough space within my home if you’d like to stay for some time. I could even get you a job with the city, if you’d like.” 

Emma set the cup down and looked at her, mouth agape just slightly but enough to clearly give away her shock. Surprises felt like threats to her, and she hated them, but this wasn’t a threat, this was an honest offer made with some less honest intentions for the near future should things devolve like she knew they inevitably would. Knowing that everything she had done would be ripped from out under her unless she acted quick and before anyone else left her bitter, but she knew she’d taste the sweetness of victory when she succeeded as she would assuredly do. 

Despite her hair pulled back, cute strands of blonde hair fell from her hair tie and dusted the back of her neck and hung down, pushed hastily behind her ears in an attempt to keep her sight sharp. Beautiful hazel eyes narrowed in on her like a dragon sighting the perfect prey, and then she shakes her head, those eyes rolling back as she sighs. 

“Well, I don’t have a life, I don’t have  _ roots _ , but maybe it’s time I planted myself somewhere.” 

“You’d make a beautiful apple tree,” Regina said, voice level despite wanting to laugh at her own joke. She had a reputation to uphold and only when Emma laughed did she join in, for once feeling her smile and finding it to be real, to be a representation of her happiness, a certain joy she hadn’t felt since before the curse. She parted ways with Emma, who planned to be back with her ‘two boxes of clothes and a pillow’ from her apartment by the evening if not the early night. Regina went about her day, dismissing Sheriff Graham for once, not caring much for his attention, abruptly and cruelly severing whatever relationship that was quickly. Graham didn’t seem too happy, but what would he do? Tell her no? She’d like to see him try. 

At six in the evening she managed to get home. Henry was sitting in the living area, drinking a soda and flipping through the pages of his story book. She hadn’t realized one existed, but apparently his teacher, Mary Margaret (that wench), gave it to him due to his lack of creative outlet, or something stupid like that. On one hand, she enjoyed that Henry learned of their history, on the other hand, she didn’t need anyone to truly believe him and ruin things or even worse, him truly hating her as much as he sometimes said he said when he spoke of the Evil Queen. 

And who exactly had called her the Evil Queen? Snow White, of course, because she was the pinnacle of perfection and Regina was just a mistake, a monster, a demon who could never be redeemed because she wasn’t ‘good’ and therefore, she was bound to suffer. Well, look who got the last laugh. She ran Storybrooke, and while it was sometimes boring, she made a better ruler than any of the princesses, the princes, the kings, and the other queens. She did everything they couldn’t and more, and her stance on murder and cruelty had no bearing on her ability to effectively rule, in fact, it only granted her a stricter and more disciplines kingdom, which didn’t seem too terrible at all. It was easy, the people who didn’t oppose her were treated well, and those that rebelled were killed or outcast to keep the peace. It worked in theory, she couldn’t keep any of the people here, or at least she had yet to kill anyone yet, but the only person she could truly kill without magic without being caught for murder was Graham because she had his heart in a little box in her family crypt. (He didn’t deserve to be placed with the other items of her past, but if he found his leash he would certainly wish to hold it himself and she couldn’t have that.) 

She slipped her heels off, although she was thankful she had stopped wearing the tall heels she once wore in the enchanted forest because she couldn’t remember how she managed to get around without breaking an ankle or worse on multiple occasions. Her heels were of a respectable height now, she had an image to maintain after all and the stilettos that Ruby was fond of weren’t exactly practical for anyone but Ruby herself. 

Instead of taking her coat upstairs to hang it up, she rested it over the chair and sat down across from Henry. He didn’t look up at her, his eyes glued to the pages of the book. She heard on soft breathing and the thunderous waver of the surprisingly intact pages with every flip, and it was deafening. Finally she took a deep breath in an attempt to gain his attention, but still he ignored her. 

“Henry,” she said. Finally his eyes snapped up, narrowed and filled with a rage she hadn’t seen in him before, and he looked at her like she had seen many people look at her before. Like she had ruined their lives, which she had done in some cases, but she had given everything to Henry. “What’s wrong?” 

“You made my mom leave.” 

She took a deep breath. Oh Maleficent grant her patience, she only had so much tolerance in her daily quota of sympathy and compassion. 

“Emma will be joining us tonight for supper. In fact, she will likely stay for quite some time. Now, is that all that’s made you upset? Is there anything else you’d like to talk about?” She crossed her legs and rested her hands on her lap, fingers laced together loosely. 

Henry was very quiet for about two minutes and then he deflated, all that anger released as his muscles relaxed and his shoulders fell, his jaw untensed, and he otherwise let go of the tension keeping him as stressed as a standing string. He flipped through his book rapidly and spun it on the coffee table and slid it forward to her. She looked at the art on the page and she frowned. A familiar crazed expression was bold and made her both angry and pitiful. It hadn’t been her issue, it was all his fault after all. He could have said ‘no,’ and held his ground with his ‘precious daughter’ -- he didn’t deserve any say over another person because he was certainly not human, not after he got involved with a fairy. 

“This character has a very tragic past and I’m sorry for that, but I’m not the Evil Queen. This isn’t real. It’s just a story, he’s  _ just _ a character.” 

Before she could try to explain anything, he flipped through the book once again and pushed it back to her. She looked down at this image as well and crossed her arms. She could feel the anger simmering under the surface and she wasn’t sure how much longer she could keep trying to stop his obsession while also knowing it was all real, and knowing that Henry  _ hated _ the person that had once been her… someone that was still her. Like the other times he flipped through the pages of the book, pointing at each story where the Evil Queen had somehow left someone else in the dust of her victory and finally she slammed the book shut and rose to her feet. With a very deep breath, inhaling through the nose exhaling through the mouth, once more, twice more -- alright, she could do this. 

“These are fictional characters,” she said. He looked up at her with the same disdain that she had seen so many times before on so many different faces. It broke her heart to see him looking at her like  _ that _ . Like she was the scum of the earth. “They don’t exist.” 

“They did, and now they don’t remember anything!” 

“Go to your room.” 

“But--” 

“ _ Go to your room _ ,” she said, her voice soft despite feeling like she should be harsh. She had taken a different approach with her child though. 

The blissful silence before an argument was barely interrupted when Henry ran out of the room and up the stairs, feet stomping with every dramatic step. She poured herself a glass of scotch, she was having a rough day. The drinking was entirely understandable, it was soothing, the routine, and not of any concern, right? She held the story book on her lap and started on the tale of Snow White. She couldn’t help her surge of anger, but she kept her tight fingers still before gingerly turning the pages to read the history. Once again, it was written by those with the happy endings, of course they didn’t care about her or anyone who wasn’t a ‘good’ person, anyone who weren’t ‘heroes’ because that’s all the fairy tales cared about, it’s all anyone cared about. 

***

It was getting late, but she needed to get gas before she could head to Regina’s place. She needed gas and probably something sweet because she was crashing. That rest she thought was good, wasn’t as restful as she had thought because three hours into the drive back from her apartment, the more she wanted to just curl up and sleep for a hundred years. Maybe Henry’s weird obsession with stories was real and Regina would feed her a poison apple that put her in a nice coma so she could just  _ rest _ . Oh, if only magic apples with sleep powers were  _ real _ . 

She walked into the gas station in Storybrooke, although it was one that was closer to the city than than the forest or countryside. The town was surprisingly large and diverse. There was an ocean, a mine, a forest, and a whole plot of land for a decent sized colony of people. Of course the forest was huge, but still, it was just crazy. She didn’t go to many towns with all the features, but it was nice to be able to escape to anywhere she needed to if she really required a break from whatever the hell was going to happen. 

“Uh, twenty on pump four,” Emma said, handing the money over. The older woman behind the counter looked at her with an odd expression. 

“You’re new, aren’t you?” the woman asked. Emma nodded, but she was no longer the center of attention since the women’s gaze moved behind her and then to her side where a man stood, shaggy hair tinted with gray, dressed in a very nice suit, and leaning on a rather fancy cane. He must be one of the rich people, or whatever. “Oh, yes, twenty on four,” the woman said, taking the money. The woman paused and pulled a wad of money from beneath the countertop. She held it out to the man. “It’s all there, Mr. Gold-sir.” 

“I imagine it would be, dear,” the man said. He tucked the money away without bothering to check the amount or anything of the sort. He tilted his head to the side. He looked at her expectantly and she nodded, realizing that she had a receipt in her hand and needed to go outside. She offered an awkward smile to the woman behind the counter. 

“Thank you.” 

“No problem, hun.” 

“Call me Emma,” she said with a smile, “I feel like we’ll be seeing each other pretty often all things considered.” 

“Emma?” There was a pause and a very sharp smile spread across his face slower than cold molassas. “That’s a beautiful name,” the man -- Mr. Gold? -- said, before holding the door open for her. She thanked him and went to pump gas into her car. She watched Mr. Gold, because he was a shifty eyed sonuvabitch and he just felt slimy from a distance. The man got into a black car, and drove off without taking a break to be creepier. She was confused, but once she was done she decided it would be better to get to Regina’s house and probably apologize for being so late, and also find out why exactly some weird dude was coming through collecting huge rolls of cash from people. Was he a landlord or was he a crime lord? Maybe both -- sometimes it was both. 

When she knocked on the front door, the door swung open on its own and she dropped her boxes and ran inside to see what was wrong. Who leaves their door unlocked in the middle of the night. She found Regina hunched over the chair, Henry’s storybook in her lap, and a vice grip around a dry tumbler. She approached hesitantly and cautiously. 

“Hey, the door was unlocked,” she said. Regina didn’t respond. “Is everything alright?” 

“He thinks I’m a monster,” Regina said quietly. 

Now, Emma wasn’t one to pity people, not really. Sometimes it was a back thought, sort of lingering but not really felt, but Regina had raised Henry, and to find out that your kid, one that you love and devoted your life to, thinks you’re an evil queen who ruined everyone’s lives? Well, that was pretty horrible, and she had no idea what it felt like, but she could empathize. She moved gently, not wanting to overstep but also not wanting her fist to clench any tighter and shatter the crystal in her hand. She took the tumbler and set it aside. She caught the page number of the book, sixty-four, and then Regina slammed it and set it gingerly on the coffee table. She reached up and wiped invisible tears from her face, although the glassy eyes had her believing that she truly had been crying despite her immaculate makeup (seriously, it had to be magic). 

“He’s a kid, he doesn’t know how much you sacrifice for him, how much you love him, I mean, I can  _ see _ it, you adore him. He loves you too, I think, he’s just, well, he’s young and dumb, we were all that age once, right?” Her attempt to de-escalate the situation failed, but to be fair, she hadn’t expected it would help too much. Regina stood up and smoothed the pencil skirt down over her thighs despite it having been wrinkle free moments ago. She looked so damn composed despite her turmoil. 

“What about your parents?” Regina asked. Emma took a deep breath and looked down at her feet. This was awkward. 

“They left me on the side of the road, actually. I hated everyone, though, because I really hated me. Why didn’t they want me? Why didn’t they keep me? Ya know, it’s sort of something most kids think, one that I didn’t want Henry to think, but one he probably thought about anyway.” 

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know.” 

“No, that’s totally okay, I’m used to it. You got bread and stuff? I can make sandwiches, you look like you’re pretty tired and I could eat and probably sleep for a week straight,” she said. Regina’s lip twitched, the subtle beginning of what could soon become a genuine smile. 

“There’s nothing straight about it,” Regina said, her tone playful despite the intense scowl on her face. “We should have fixings for sandwiches. I think I should probably make it though. Why don’t you… why don’t you go talk to Henry. He seems to care about your opinion.” Regina’s tone died quickly, just like any hope for her to win against this rebellious behaviour of Henry’s, or rather Regina’s fear to end it before there is a possibility to win or lose. 

“I don’t want to overstep.” 

“Please? I wouldn’t know what to say. Bring him down for dinner, maybe something to eat will make him feel better.” 

So Emma set up the stairs, forgetting about the boxes she had left outside until she was outside of Henry’s bedroom door. It had Henry’s name on it in colourful letters and she knocked. Henry yanked the door open and his narrowed eyes, straight-lined mouth and twitching cheeks were quickly soothed into something more reminiscent of what she had first met. 

“Can I come in?” With permission, she entered the bedroom and took in the amazing room. It was everything any kid could ever want. He must really be convinced Regina was the devil incarnate because from a monetary standpoint, he was doing very, very well. She sat on the edge of his bed and sighed, slapping her hands on her thighs before sighing once more, not exactly sure how to approach the situation. 

Without hesitance Henry asked, “You realized she’s the Evil Queen, huh?” 

Then, it hit without any sort of prompting or thought. 

“No. I don’t think she’s evil at all,” she said. Henry tilted his head and put his hands on his hips, looking at her with a confused expression. She could understand, but also, he needed to realize that this wasn’t healthy for anyone, and it was really hurting his mother. The only issue was that she had no idea how to possibly express this without sounding like an idiot. 

“But the book--” 

“I walked in on your mother crying over the book. Does an evil queen do that? Henry, please, she’s not evil. A queen, most definitely, but evil? She’s making sandwiches. She invited me to live here. Does that sound like something an evil queen would do?” Henry’s eyes lit up, she was so glad that made sense because she still wasn’t sure if she was explaining things properly. 

“She’s letting you stay?” 

“Yeah. She said she’d help me find a job too.” 

Without warning, Henry’s expression fell once again. He threw his arms in the air and let out a noise of frustration. She stood up, unsure what to do. Henry shook his head and stared at her, hazel eyes meeting each other from their positions. She held her ground and so did he. Was she trying to play chicken or was she trying to fast track the route of this rebellion? As an adult, she gave in first because really, she couldn’t be glaring at a child with a challenge, that was just asking for arson or something destructive, it’s what she would have done. 

“She’s clearly manipulating you. She already has you hooked.” 

“Alright, dude, I’m gonna say this one time and I need you to believe me, trust me for whatever reason you sought me out, whatever you said about the book or whatever alright? Your mother is  _ not _ the Evil Queen, your mom loves you, she wants you to flourish, and she’s sacrificing things for you because that’s what parents do. She  _ loves _ you. Don’t take it for granted. Some people never get that.” 

“But I know your parents. Snow White and Prince Charming!” 

Deciding this was a losing battle, she shrugged her shoulders. 

“Well, I’m gonna go eat the sandwiches your mom made, and if you’re not down, I’m gonna eat yours too, so come on… or don’t. It’s up to you, but I think that whatever has you believing this madness, isn’t right. I know when people are lying, or at least I do most of the time, nine out of ten-ish, and your mom loves you, she’s upset, and she really hates it when you call her an evil-anything.” 

Since Henry didn’t bother replying, she left the room and walked down the stairs and to the kitchen where Regina was making roast beef sandwiches and offered to help. Regina brushed her off and took the three plates to the table and sat at the head of the table. For once Emma wasn’t sure what to do with herself at a table like this. She had done many things as a bounty hunter, sorta-kinda, and one of them was to go out to dinners a lot, but this was homey. The room looked like it was cut out of a gothic, fancy room design magazine. She looked to Regina who nodded and started eating. 

Roast beef wasn’t something she got unless it was at the deli, but this was from an actual roast and it was amazing. She was half finished when Henry came down the stairs and sat across from her, on Regina’s other side, and started to eat. He was quiet, but Regina looked at her and mouthed, ‘thank you’ before going back to her dinner. Yeah, so the night was weird, but she picked up the boxes from outside and took them to one of the guest rooms, although this was sort of her room in a way now. She had the craziest two days of her life, but crazy wasn’t always a bad thin, and she fell asleep knowing that she’d wake up, and there would be other people there, and she would be able to say good morning to people she would see every morning, and for once, the idea of ‘roots’ was more appealing than ever before, and she was glad she made the ‘right’ decision, because the ‘wrong’ decision would have her in an early grave. 


	2. Of Love and Hate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An in-depth retelling of Regina's plan and execution of The Dark Curse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this is what it says on the tin. The great thing, is it's pretty much canonical, the second thing, is that you can skip it if you want. Because I realize that this chapter is already probably something you know happened if you've seen the show, I'm posting two chapters, so you have the next chapter as well to entertain you. I didn't want to just shove information you already know out, but I really wanted to write this out to try and get a better grasp on Regina's motives and the way I'd be playing her character in the rest of the story I'm writing since it differs quite a bit down the road. 
> 
> Also, there's a shot Prince Charming POV, so yeah. It's pretty much the show, so yeah, I got lazy sort of, but also, it was just a well written part and I was impressed and didn't want to mess with this part too much because I really liked it in the show. Like I said, I wrote this mostly for myself, but it makes sense to post it just in case someone does want to read it -- also, it's in the document I'm working on so if I skip it then my entire numbering system would be messed up and I just can't have that.

It was a show of thick, heavy gowns built and worn as royalty should, moving quicker than most regal, slow women who had the world waiting on them would, but she wasn’t a woman at this point, she wasn’t mortal, she was above such things, she was  _ vengeance _ personified and she knew what she had to do and she was determined to do it even if it killed her -- although with all the work she was putting into this she hoped she wouldn’t die. 

Her dress recoiled, strong muscles from carrying the excessive weight of the gown kept the fabric from forcing her over when she abruptly stopped in front of her mirror. She leaned forward, rested a hand against the ornate frame and took a deep breath, trying to calm herself and stop her shaking hands. She was a queen, she was  _ the _ queen, and she needed to act it even if it was difficult sometimes. That anger gave way to remind her of everything wrong that her mother had ever scolded her for, perhaps this was truly all her fault, she had messed up somehow, but she also knew that her mother made this monster, this is what she wanted, right? Would her father have wanted something like this for her? Of course not! Unfortunately he would be kept out of this for as long as she could allow because he didn’t need more trouble over his weak and weary head. 

“Now, that’s an awfully troublesome threat. Truly? You’re going to destroy  _ everyone’s _ happiness?” Her mirror looked at her, judged her from behind the glass and she reminded him of a very annoying and flamboyant witch she left behind, and damn if it didn’t serve to only upset her further. Her mirror took a deep breath. “Calm down, honey. Excuse me,  _ my queen _ . How exactly do you plan on doing such a grand thing?” 

“The Dark Curse,” she said. Even her mirror didn’t seem to know what to say in response, for once, and was silent for a solid second. She agreed with her mirror, as rarely as it occurred, on this matter because she was honestly afraid of what could happen. What would she do without her magic? Without her power? There had to be a way, and her anger outweighed her fear ten fold. The fact she allowed someone to hurt her so deeply left her beyond bitter, but there was no use to ponder and wallow in her woes when she could do something about it, even if it meant destroying the world as they knew it. 

This was when her father walked inside her room, hesitating her approach. She wanted to hug him and tell him everything, but if she didn’t do it soon, she risked going back on her plan, and that was simply unacceptable. She was not pathetic, she was not weak, she was better than everyone else, that’s why she deserved this, she deserved to be happy and if that meant taking it from everyone else then she would. 

“Forgive me for hearing, I happened to come with something to drink, your majesty, you seemed upset,” he said. He handed her a glass of water and she lowered her head almost shamed. Her father was so kind, too kind for the wicked wench he had married. He was too kind to be her father. Damn, she loved him so much, she appreciated him, she wanted to use all that power to protect him. The longer they stood in silence, the more she debated the issue. What would that mean for her father, though? She couldn’t just leave him to die and if she took him with her then what guarantee would there be that he even remembered her. 

If she lost him… what would she do if she was well and truly alone? 

“You said, passionately I might add, that you would never resort to such drastic measures,” her mirror said. Of course he was going to bring it up. She told him many things and he listened and sassed her but retained it for moments like these where he reminded her that she was doing something she had clearly been against for quite some time. 

“You made a deal when you parted with that curse,” Henry said. Her father, still looking out for her, reminding her of what could happen, trying in the honestly simple ways he could offer. He was too good for this world, they didn’t deserve him, sometimes she didn’t deserve him and this is why she had traded the damn thing in the past. She hadn’t felt such hot anger before, and she felt very intense emotions far too often to be sane or normal. 

“She won’t be happy to see you,” her mirror said. She hissed and slapped the mirror, sending his face and voice away until only she looked back at her. Beside her Henry stood, smaller in stature and getting pudgy in his old age. 

“I trust you. You’ll do what you think is right, what you need, and I’ll support you. I just want to see you happy,” he said. She tensed her entire body, trying to refrain from doing something stupid and nodded tersely. She tried to leave him but nobody trusted  _ her _ . She was the evil queen, and yet there he was. The fact her father could be hurt in her outburst faded from her shoulders because she could justify it as being all Snow’s fault. If only she hadn’t been a brat. If only she hadn’t thought herself so much better than everyone else. She had been and always would be a pampered princess. She knew  _ nothing _ of difficulty in life. She lived on the run for a good year, sure, but even then she had people to support her and her prince came in and swept her off her feet and where had Regina been? Ruining the messes she left in her wake while being hated for doing her duty to the whole damn kingdom. 

The Forbidden Fortress was as gothic as before, the windows were arched in a way highlighting such a style. A style that had since fallen out of fashion, but only served to remind her that the woman inside this castle was very strong and very old. This wouldn’t be easy, but she hadn’t expected it to be. 

She walked into the castle and found Maleficent sitting on a chair, legs crossed, staff held up while the other hand rested on her knee. She took a deep breath and sat on the chair Maleficent waved to in a blink of an eye before returning to an almost sentry-like focus on what seemed to be normal flames. Due to Maleficent’s relaxed and generally nonchalant attitude, she tried desperately to mimic her relief but she couldn’t force her body to comply, not this time. 

“What is it, dear?” Maleficent asked, the hand on her knee reaching out to run through the long hair curled over her shoulder. Her eyes were always hooded, but they looked a little more so in the light. Was she tired, perhaps? That may make things easier. 

“I’m well.” 

“Are you?” Maleficent asked this, probably based on the fact that she would break, should her patterns be trusted. She refused to do so now, and instead she shrugged her hand away and off her shoulder, the comfort she silently offered needed to cease, the comfort that she had enjoyed but also equated with inevitable disappointment. 

Maleficent leaned forward, hand held out only for a crystal glass to slap against her palm. She took a sip of the amber liquid and let out a long, contented sigh. “If it were me, I’d be unreservedly suffering. To watch the brat that caused you such pain find happiness while you are hunted for legal action in hindsight? Your malcontent is justified. You were just about her age when you were going to get married, yes? Oh, that’s right, you were, but that didn’t happen quite as you imagined it, yes?” 

“I was the same age as Sleeping Beauty when she managed to best you, Maleficent.” 

Neither spoke for a second but Regina needed something, and she was well aware that the other witch knew why she was there. Maleficent didn’t rise to the bait, though and simply sat back, holding an empty glass in her lap. 

“Yet I soldiered on, as one has to when happy endings are impossible to obtain. I only wish you would do the same… have you come here to seek comfort as one wronged woman to another, as friends; or have you come looking for something a little less practical?” 

Instead of speaking, she stood up and looked down at Maleficent, who looked up at her with swirling green eyes. She could feel the heat of the room grow too warm to be comfortable and she was unfortunately aware that it was cold outside and she had worn a heavier dress and cloak. The temperature itself was stifling, but what was truly cause for concern was Maleficent’s silence. She wasn’t exactly one for much talking, but she had never been shy either. 

“I need my curse back. That’s why I’m here.” 

The temperature returned to something tolerable. The cold began to replace the warm and the sudden change left her body feeling confused and her mind was already a swirling mess of sinister plots, but this time Maleficent also stood up, looking down at Regina because she was truly taller in this case, and her horns made it even more so. 

“If I remember correctly, which I do, that curse is no longer yours. I gave you the sleeping curse and so now yours is mine. This is how trading works, as I’m sure you’re familiar with.” 

“A curse that failed. Beaten by a simple kiss, and now I need my spell back,” she said. She reached her hand out, palm up, looking Maleficent up and refusing to back down. She wasn’t going to give her any ground to get any hold on her, but she also knew that Maleficent had some dangerous  _ tricks _ up her sleeve. “With that curse, I may find the only comfort afforded: the suffering of Snow White.” 

Maleficent’s fingers curled tighter around her staff, and while her grip was white-knuckled, and her nails were talons that could cut through her skin in a manner as easy as water slipping off a waxy leaf in a rainstorm, the tight shoulders never showed through the glamorous cloak obscuring much of her body, and her jaw remained as untensed as it typically was, a small difference to find considering her lips were always pursed, and her cheeks were constantly flexing with exertion. 

“You truly believe that the Dark Curse could offer you the relief you seek? Even it’s unholy power cannot bring back the man you loved… have you considered a pet?” Maleficent’s delivery was almost uninterested, but she knew that Maleficent was one of the very specific deal makers in the circle of the ‘villains’ that she knew, second most peculiar, actually, and despite whatever sort of attempt at humor or blatant mockery of her suffering, she could only scoff at the ridiculous question. 

A pet would do her no good, but to see her enemies in pain, to see them without their joy and facade of perfection, that was what she wanted, that’s what she needed. She could see the unicorn lurking in the corner, watching them with eerie intelligence. So Maleficent had been serious, she had found herself a pet to ease the pain of her metaphorical wounds? Or maybe physical injuries as well considering her companion animal was a unicorn of all things. 

“I know he’s gone, even the darkest magic cannot bring him back, but Snow still has her prince. Let’s have her realize how it feels for someone to murder her lover, to have your heart ripped from her chest.” 

It took maybe two seconds for Regina to know what she would be forced to do, and she eyed the orb on Maleficent’s staff. She threw a ball of fire at the witch, knowing she would deflect it, after all, Maleficent was a very strong and skilled sorceress. Unlike Maleficent, she had nothing to hold onto, nothing to care for, nothing to love… except her father, but he wasn’t a part of this, she’d keep him safe, she’d have to. She raised her hands, a variety of weapons around the room rose from the ground and she directed them at the unicorn. Before she could throw them, Maleficent was running to shield her  _ pet _ , and as she ran, she moved perfectly, and one one of those weapons was thrown, and it sliced through the chain holding the chandelier, which fell and landed on Maleficent, forcing her to the ground. 

As the metal curled around Maleficent’s body, and since the force knocked the staff from her hand, Regina knew she would get what she came for. She watched as Maleficent struggled and was able to weaken the magic keeping it caged around her. Regina picked up the staff and looked down at where Maleficent lay tangled on the magnificent stone floors. 

“Love is a weakness,” she said. “I’d thought you of all people would know that.” 

“If you wish to kill me, then do so.” 

Regina pulled the orb from her friend’s staff and pulled the small scroll from the inside and held it in her palm. She replaced the orb on the gnarled staff and set it down on the floor just out of Maleficent’s reach. She looked at the unicorn, still now but stationed closer to them than before. She could respect the creature’s wish to protect its master. 

“Why would I do that?” she asked. “You’re my only friend.” Regina began to walk, there was a carriage awaiting her arrival outside the castle doors. She could hear Maleficent grunting as she slowly let the magic holding the cage tight slowly weakening. 

“Don’t do this! Please, don’t do this. There are lines even we should not cross! It will leave you hollow, it will leave you even worse than you are now.” 

“Then so be it,” she whispered, more to herself than to anyone else. She didn’t need to explain anything any further than she already had, so she wouldn’t. She held the spell in her hands, she wouldn’t let it go, she needed it now more than ever, and she would use it like she once said she never would. There was too little to be lost, she had already been robbed of everything she knew save a few people that she was still hesitant around, waiting for them to realize that he really was an evil queen, that Snow and her sycophants really were right, that she could never change, that she would never be good. She was a monster, and at that moment, she was glad because it would take only a monster to rip everyone out of their world as punishment and torment them in whatever half life they received for eternity. They wouldn’t know why she disliked them, but she would always  _ hate _ them, and no spell would change that outlook. 

It took her more time than she’d like to admit to gather the most cruel allies she had. She had bribed them with the promise of a good life beyond the world, a world where even the outcasts were able to truly find purchase on the most glorious goal for anyone in the world: happiness. 

Her father, or valet as he so often referred to himself as (and she had started to follow his lead, accepting his acceptance of his position in her life, yet blind to everything she wanted that she was emotionally unable to share with him), stood beside her around the fire. To her sides were her allies, a blind and wicked witch, the most despicable gnome, and an overzealous behemoth in the form of an ogre. Her valet held the box containing the heart of her favourite steed, a beauty that she would sacrifice despite her attachment because to make this spell work, she needed the death of the thing she loved most. 

Already, she was tossing the necessary ingredients into the fire. The cinders crackled as they flew into the air, but she could feel the energy, she knew that  _ something _ was happening. 

“Tonight I will put an end to our eternal misery. We will be able to live lives where we too can experience our greatest wishes. Where we can reclaim our lives and take our rightful places among the others, the peasants with shiny crowns and cultish following from the weak and the foolish.” 

“We’ll be happy?” the witch asked. 

“I guarantee it,” she said, her voice as steady as ever despite the knowledge that these people would be beneath her, but she wasn’t lying, they would be above those that oppressed their kind for centuries. “Firstly, I require a lock of hair from those with the darkest souls. You must trust my purpose will benefit us all, but if you don’t--” the trees around them started to move, roots ripping closer to the ground and branches waving like demonic tentacles “--I can find another way to obtain it.” 

Suffice to say, there was no hesitation when offering locks of their hair, and she took them gladly. She added the hair to the fire, and looked over them all. There was only one ingredient left, the final moments of her life in the Enchanted Forest, her final night seeing kingdoms lit by candles and forests left undisturbed or writhing under magical influence. Her father removed the box from his bag and opened it for her. 

“The heart I prized most, that of my childhood steed. A beast that even in death serves me, serves  _ us _ , and guides us down the path of victory. Let my wrath be unleashed!” She threw the heart into the flames, and from the flickering tips black smoke started to rise, and rise higher, and then it faded away, and the fire returned to a small size that looked no different from any other fire. She had failed, again. 

“You really unleashed something alright,” the gnome said. She watched as those fools left her, taking their paths through the natural forest devoid of her magic. The laughter from the three allies she gathered to help her achieve her happiness rang in her ears, a taunt and mockery of her miserable attempt at change. She had followed everything in the damn spell, and yet there she was, staring at the flames. What had gone wrong? 

***

One second he was trying to settle his restless wife in bed and the other he was catching her unsteady form in his arms. She looked up at him with the greatest and most sincere pain of conflict he had ever seen. He had never seen her quite this distressed, emotional at least. He held her in his arms and let her rest there. Finally, he realized that she was worried. The Queen had come and told them all of a vague destruction she wished to unleash upon them all. He knew, and was aware that Snow knew, that the Queen didn’t make empty threats, not like that, and they really were in danger. That being said, he wanted to keep Snow as relaxed as possible. She was so perfect, and precious, and she was carrying their child. Everything was beyond excellent at this point but the threat loomed over their heads like a raincloud, ready to tear down everything they had built for themselves after they lost it all. 

“You’re thinking about the Queen again, aren’t you?” 

“And you aren’t?” she asked back, effectively stopping all the prepared responses to whatever questions she could come up with because he hadn’t expected that one at all. 

“Honestly, I’m terrified,” he said. She seemed to tense and that was the opposite of what he wanted. There was a reason for this, for all of it, he just didn’t know what it was yet. “We’re about to have a baby. We’re growing a family. There is nothing I want more than for us to all be safe. I understand your worries, but I’ll keep us safe. She can’t hurt us. Not when we’re together.” Snow looked at him like he was suddenly the most stupid man in the Enchanted Forest. 

“She poisoned me with an apple because she thought I was prettier than her. I don’t think we know what she’s capable of.” 

“Well, what else could ease your mind?” he asked. He was desperate, so very desperate to help her rest. To put her fears aside for a month at the very least. There was a massive threat, yes, but they had defeated the Queen once, they could do it once again, and this time they had something even more special to use against her -- true love. 

“I want to talk to  _ him _ ,” she said. Her typically soft voice was harsh and lacked hesitancy. It seemed that she had put quite some thought into this decision of hers, and he wanted to argue against it entirely, but he’d seen what Snow was capable of, he knew that both of them were strong, they were fighters and survivors, but he had heard some nasty things about a certain prisoner in their dungeons, he had a few unfortunate meetings with the man, if he could even be called that, too. He did it for good reasons, but he had still helped a monster no matter how good his intentions may have been. 

“It’s too dangerous,” he said. Snow shook her head, and when she moved in his arms, wrapping her arms around his waist and resting her cheek against his chest, well, he couldn’t deny her. “There’s a reason he’s in there.” 

“But he can see the future.” She sighed and looked up at him with tears threatening to spill over her eyes and down her cheeks. He preemptively wiped the tears away before they could fall. “Can you guarantee her safety because I can’t, but he can.” 

The dungeons were often cold, so he had wrapped Snow in an extra coat just in case. She still put herself first, ready to fight and protect everyone around them despite the fact she now needed extra protection. Selfless and wonderful, she was absolutely stunning. Still the guards held their arms out and kept them from the light. Apparently the man had power over them if he had their names, but he knew that the way Rumplestiltskin was, considering he could see the future sometimes (it was iffy sometimes, or maybe he just played everything very close to his chest, understandably), the man already knew they were there and who they were. He likely knew their names and many other personal details about them that they themselves had never given him. 

When Rumplestiltskin descended from the bars like some sort of lizard, the man immediately looked at them and they stepped forward despite the guards’ protests. They had come to the dungeons fully aware of the danger this man posed to them, but he was needed despite this. Snow walked closer to the bars and Charming felt bad for grabbing her wrist but he was scared, even if he wasn’t going to admit to what extent that fear was. 

“We’re here to ask about--” 

“Yes, yes, the Queen’s threat. I know, and you know I know because you know that I can see the future,” he said, stopping and letting out inhuman giggle-like sounds that cemented the idea that this  _ thing _ was… insane, entirely so. 

“Tell us what we want to know,” Snow said, once again stepping closer on for him to hold her beautiful, slim wrists in his hands to keep her far from the threat so nearby. He could tell from the huff at each action that she was irritated by him, but if she didn’t have a care for herself, then he was going to ensure their child remained as safe as possible, and Snow happened to be inseparable from her just yet so she would have to survive with his protective tendencies for a while longer. 

“So tense! I can only imagine what’s going on up there--” he tapped a talon tipped finger to his temple “--Fear not, for I can ease your mind!  _ But _ , it will cost you something in return.” 

As a husband, father, and king he refused this deal and tried to guide Snow away, but she was firmly rooted into her stance and he couldn’t move her without injuring her even slightly. He wanted to trust himself, he was a rather good judge, sometimes, but still, he didn’t want to overstep, and she was a very independent woman, married or not. He sighed and moved to stand behind her, an arm wrapped just above her growing belly. 

“What do you want?” she asked. He watched the interaction, worried and uncomfortable but also comforted by the fact that Snow seemed so confident. She saw the good in everyone making her judgements difficult, but this was just a sign of her large capacity to care, and he wouldn’t take that from her, even if he wished she’d have a bit more survival instinct. 

“Oh… how about the name of your unborn child?” 

Instead of interjecting, he held his tongue, trying and begging any being he could pray to for safety for his wife and child. On the other hand, Rumpelstiltskin started rambling about curses, being trapped in time, in a prison that would take away everything dear to them. Snow seemed to be so interested that she leaned forward, but Charming couldn’t get his head quite wrapped around the idea that the Queen would really go through all this trouble, and then he reminded himself that she was called an evil witch for a reason, and the panic he had been smothering in an attempt to calm himself rose to the surface and the agony of knowing how they wouldn’t be able to do anything. 

When Rumplestiltskin’s hand reached out from the bars and touched Snow’s belly, she asked, “Who can?” at the same time he drew his sword and slapped the man’s hand with it. The gnarled and glittery fingers were pulled back behind bars. 

“Next time, I’ll cut it off,” he said. Rumplestiltskin only let out a pleased and eerie sound similar to a giggle. Did grown men giggle? Was it a magic thing? He had never heard of it before, but he had never met anyone even close to Rumplestiltskin’s level of creepy and crazy presence and he hoped that he never had to. 

“The little thing growing in your belly.” Rumplestiltskin leaned forward on the bars again, casually, as if he weren’t locked inside. Then again, maybe he was staying for some other reason. What guarantee did they have that whatever fairy magic used to keep him in truly worked. Everyone knew he was stronger than just about anyone else in the Enchanted Forest, so it wouldn’t be too surprising if he was really just toying with them for some reason they had yet to see. “Get the child to safety, and on it’s--” the man closed his eyes and made a face before he opened thed and grinned “--twenty-eighth birthday your child will find you-- and the final battle shall begin!” 

“Come on, we’ve heard enough. Let’s go,” he said, holding Snow under one of his arms as they started to walk. There was a god awful howl and shouting from behind him. 

“Hey! No! No, no, no, no! We made a deal! I want her name!” he started to rattle the bars in their stone hold and they turned around. “I. Need. Her. Name. Give me a name!  _ I want her name _ !” He was confused because they were sure it was going to be a boy moments earlier, not believing in the pendant his dearest mother gave them, it wasn’t enchanted, the Blue Fairy confirm it, so therefore there was no credibility that it was a girl, and he had hoped for a son so badly. 

“Her? It’s a boy,” he said. Snow’s hand reached up to rest on his chest, as if she were placating a stubborn child. It stung, but he didn’t know what to do beside deal with it silently. 

“Ah, you -- prettiest snowflake, crystal of ice -- you know I’m right. Now tell me. Tell me her name?” 

Snow looked at Rumpelstiltskin and let her reply linger softly in the air. “Emma,” she had said. She was parroted by the mad man behind bars and they left quickly. They had things to get down to prepare for the curse Regina planned to unleash upon them, and with the help of the Blue Fairy they created a portal to a place that Snow and Emma would be safe. 

If only they had been able to leave in time. Poor Emma had been left alone. How could he forgive himself? And how would Snow suffer such a loss without breaking? 

***

For hours she had been pacing in her chambers. Confused and angry that the spell hadn’t worked, that she was still there, that she was still being tormented by the joy she was denied time and time again. Her dearest father stood near the tall double doors watching her move. She felt his eyes on her and stopped to look at him. Did he have something to say? Did he have something that meant anything? Maybe she should do as she told Maleficent, get rid of what you love because it made you  _ weak _ , her father made her weak because she loved him. 

How could she ever think such a thing? Moments after the thought passed from ear to ear, she was mortified with her train of thought. She had done many bad, bad things, but patricide wasn’t something she had ever considered seriously. He wasn’t a great man in the beginning, but under her guidance and influence, she brought out the best in him, and she had nobody she cared for greater, nobody alive, nobody she would ever see again. Slowly out of respect for her status and position above him it seemed, her father approached her, standing beside her and also behind her. 

“Perhaps it’s for the best,” he said. She opened her mouth to speak, but her jaw snapped shut a second later. She had nothing nice to say to him, she was too upset. When had he ever protected her from Core, though? When had he ever shown her kindness before she became too strong for him to contain? Maybe it wasn’t love, maybe it was desperation for some sort of figure that she knew wouldn’t leave,  _ couldn’t _ leave because without her, there was no one to protect him, to allow him to live in the luxury he had always known. Even as her manservant he was afforded far more comforts than anyone else of a similar position. “The forces you’re summoning must be far darker than we can conceive.” 

“Oh,  _ now _ you’re trying to protect me?” she asked. She turned to look at him, her heels and straight shoulders allowed her height over his small and aging frame. He didn’t react to her anger this time, he stood still nodding his head sagely. 

“It’s what I do.” 

Then she deflated, “I know.” She felt the tension bleed from her and turned back around to keep her back to him. She didn’t want him to see her like this, sad. She didn’t need or want anyone to know that she could truly be hurt, that there were scales missing from her dragon-like armor, that there were weaknesses to be exploited. “You’re the only one who does.” 

“They don’t know what they’re missing. Helping you… it’s my life. It’s my purpose, and to watch you destroy yourself…” 

“If it’s your purpose then help me now when I need you more than ever before. Help me understand what went wrong. Why didn’t it work? What should I do? No amount of gentle nudging away from this decision will work on me, so if you want to help, then give me ideas, give me answers.” 

Her father didn’t seem to want to argue on this point. He took a deep breath, she could hear the fluid in his lungs. He was sick, and she hadn’t even known. Was he planning to die? Was he going to be alright? Why hadn’t he offered her this information, she would have made a potion to-- he didn’t want to bother her with his troubles because he didn’t want her to… if only her mother was of a similar disposition. 

“If you truly wish to enact the curse, I suggest you return to the one who gifted it to you in the beginning,” he said. She was already gearing to leave when he spoke once more. “Revenge is a dark and lonely road. Once you traverse the trail, there is no escaping that darkness, you will never be able to return from that place, from that magic.” 

“What here is worth returning to?” 

Her form was small, but her miniscule size only allowed her to be far more stealthy than any person. She ran up to the gates of the dark cell and peeked inside. 

“It’s just us, dearie. You can show yourself,” the distinct voice of one Rumplestiltskin said. The man in question approached the bars, his scaled hands wrapping around the bars, the shuddering candles lit his face. Whatever curse created the man, left his skin sparkling, and it did so under the light like crushed diamonds. He was a very ugly man, but looks meant little when he was as powerful as he was. He couldn’t break the laws of magic, but he had a talent to circumvent certain ‘rules’ with surprising and sneaky loopholes in the fabric of their magical abilities. 

She rose to her feet as a human, lifting the hem of her dress off the straw-covered stone floor. She dropped a handful of fabric to hold onto the small scroll filled with the instructions to properly prepare and execute a detrimental-to-reality-as-they-knew-it curse. It seemed that Rumplestiltskin knew immediately what it was, and the high-pitched, slightly maniacal laughter echoed through stone tunnels. Knowing the man in question better than most, she knew that whatever guards were stationed would be used to his cackling and likely thought nothing of it. He was always making odd sounds that were neither human nor beast, he was from neither category, simply the thing he was with no others quite the same. 

“The curse you gave me,” she said, looking from her hand to him. “It’s not working.” 

“Oh, everyone’s so worried. Always worrying. Just like Snow and the not-so-charming new husband!” 

“What?” She felt any sort of ease she had put away because this was… this wasn’t happening. Snow would never resort to going to Rumplestiltskin for any advice, for any deals, she had been so strict about using ‘dark magic’ that she doubted she would go within a thirty meter radius of the man in question, even less actually watch him from behind his bars. 

“Wasn’t I clear enough? Let me dumb it down for you, dearie: the oh-so-charming Charmings came to little ol’ me. They asked me questions, many-many-many questions. More than I would have expected from such a righteous and valiant couple. They were curious about  _ you _ ,” he said. He pointed a finger at her and reached through the bars. “They asked about that itty, bitty paper with the curse that could destroy the world.” 

“And what did you tell them?” She took a step closer to the bars and slapped his hand away. He withdrew it and crossed his arms in the cell. He shifted his weight to one side and grinned wider than the confusing Cheshire Cat and with far more disgusting, sharp teeth than the psychotic feline. 

“The truth, of course!” She could have strangled him right there, but she knew that her anger and reactions would only goad him forward. “Nothing can stop the darkness,  _ except _ for their unborn child, that is. You see, no matter how powerful, any and every curse can be broken.” He paused for effect, but she didn’t react which had him pouting, despite still retaining that ridiculously sharp smile. “Their babbling baby of the future is the key. Of course, the curse has to be enacted first.” 

“Tell me what I did wrong.” 

“For that,” he said, holding up a single finger, “There’s a price.” 

She crossed her arms, “Fine. What do you want?” 

“Simple. In this new land, I’d like  _ comfort _ . I want a good life, a lavish life one could say.” He leaned towards the bars, his cheeks held back as he rested forward against the heavy, iron bars. She could understand that desire, and it was a small price to pay compared to the few debts of her in the past. 

“Fine! You’ll have an estate, you’ll be rich--” 

“I wasn’t finished,” he said. She took in a deep breath, oh someone grant her patience to deal with him because he was the only one that could help her and people didn’t like to cooperate if you tortured them or threatened them, especially not someone like Rumplestiltskin. She rolled her eyes and waved a hand, trying to get him to just speak frankly so she could get on with her revenge. 

“In this new land, should I ever come to you for any reason, you must heed my every request--” she opened her mouth to give him the firm answer of ‘no,’ but he giggled and she shut her mouth. He wasn’t finished talking yet either. Irritating imp. “You must do whatever I say, so long as I say ‘please’.” Not one to look a horse in the mouth, she was definitely fine with the agreement seeing as he wouldn’t be remembering any of this to begin with. Then again, with Rumplestiltskin, the slipperiest serpent in existence, there had to be an angle to this. So she wanted more information. 

“Should I succeed, and I shall, you won’t remember anything of this world, certainly not this conversation.” 

“Then what’s the harm?” he asked. That definitely made her wary, but everyone who knew anything about the Dark One knew that he was not to be taken at face value, ever, because he had ascended the mundane and subjective idea of sanity and his mind reached places and conclusions unlike any other living being. 

“Deal,” she said. He leaned forward, turning his head so she could see a pointy ear poke from greasy hair. “What must I do to enact this curse?” 

With a flourish, stepping back into his cell, just barely visible, he made a motion to his chest. “You must sacrifice a heart that you hold dear in your heart.” 

“I sacrificed my prized steed.” 

Like an animal, Rumplestiltskin was latched onto the bars, curling around the bars like some wild demon as he did so. There was nothing in his eyes except disappointment and discontentment. He shook the bars for a second before reaching out with a hand to grab her by the throat and pull her to him. She took a step back, but only just avoided his grip. Apparently that is where she went wrong considering Rumplestiltskin’s reaction. He was practically foaming at the mouth. 

“A horse? This is the curse to end all curses and you sacrifice a pathetic  _ horse _ ? How far you’ve fallen: growing dumb in your time of distress.” Rumplestiltskin slowly untensed and stood back on the ground before glaring at her with a look she had seen in her mirror as she watched something stupid that Snow did, something that undermimed her and otherwise thought the girl was being beyond stupid. The longer he glared, the more she realized that she absolutely hated being on the receiving end of that gaze. Even Cora’s anger and disappointment wasn’t quite as…  _ harsh _ , not like this. “Great power requires great sacrifices. The heart you need must come from something far more precious than a hunk of brainless and abundant equine. Do you recognize anyone you can think of that you consider  _ precious _ ?” 

“Tell me exactly what I need,” she stepped forward, desperate for the information he could provide. She had nothing precious, nothing that he was describing, so what would she do without it? 

“The heart of the thing you love the most,” he said. “I’ve already mentioned this. Are you truly so unloved that there no soul dares to even attempt a relationship?” With pity, he reached out and stroked her cheek, surprisingly soft skin and thick, sharp nails brushing against her jaw. She would have been glad for the affection if only it was someone that she knew could ever possibly reciprocate something vaguely in league with love. Rumplestiltskin was like her mother -- heartless, or so she assumed. 

“What I loved most died when Snow White stepped in and ruined my life.” She slapped his hand away, but got closer, staring into his dark eyes, her upper lip twitching as she fought down a snarl. He seemed unaffected by this attempt at intimidation. 

“Is there truly no one else?” 

And then she thought of someone she cared for greatly. Someone that cared about her, someone who cared for her and wanted to help her because of that love, not because of what she could offer. Unconditional love, something so rare to her that he was the only person to ever offer such a thing. Rumplestiltskin’s smile widened, splitting his face before he leaned forward, his pointy nose bumped into hers. 

“This curse won’t be easy, but vengeance never is. You have to ask yourself one, simple questions, dearie: how far are you willing to go?” She paused for a moment, looking down, not wanting to look a real monster in the face while she struggled with her desire for revenge and her yearning for anything like love, anything that brought her even a small amount of joy. In the end, seconds later, she reached the easiest conclusion. She could say it like it was the easiest thing in the world, and she knew she would hesitate, but she meant this. She would get her happily ever after even if she had to murder the only person who had ever loved her unconditionally. 

“As far as it takes.” 

Rumplestiltskin pulled back and crossed his arms, an amused expression on his face, his eyebrows raised high and she walked in a circle around his cell. He looked at his stained fingernails and didn’t look at her, although she knew he was aware of what was happening around him, her included, despite his faux ignorance. 

“Now you know what to do, so stop wasting everybody’s limited time and find the thing you love--” he smirked and looked over her with a sadistic and pleased expression. “--and  _ kill it _ .” 

So, she did. 


	3. Gift of Venus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The beginning of the end. Emma is entranced by Regina, and leaving doesn't seem like an option anymore. The issue is, it's very clear that Henry doesn't much like this, and he isn't going to stand by and watch as Emma is ruined by the Evil Queen... until he has no choice, and can only verbally express his disappointment. 
> 
> Or, where Emma's lived a hard life, so she doesn't mind being thrown multiple curve balls to smash directly in her face. Regina doesn't much like that, and both women may be desperate for someone (anyone) for some genuine affection, so now they have each other at the very least.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, so I realized that I sort of just cut Graham out of this in chapter six, and I know that there was a lot of story I could have written out, but I'm writing chapter ten right now and it's over eighty pages, and also, I didn't want to have to add perspectives of anyone beside Regina, Emma, and later, Jefferson. The issue is, I may still go back and add things, but as of right now, expect some time to be cut and some quick explanations. I know that it's not very fun as a reader, but I have a story I'm pasting together one idea at a time, and he just didn't fit, so I got rid of him. Sorry about that, but there's a bit of a warning for you. 
> 
> Also, this chapter was written after a three day break and I totally forgot the first chapter when I read it because I was so focused on making things work, so there are probably errors, like little continuity things. Should I fix them since I know of their existence? Yes. Will I? Probably not, unless it's so bad that it's not worth reading. My mind is continually pushing for this to go in so many different directions that I sometimes get lost in navigation. It's like trying to go both left and right but also trying to go forward and backward and being trapped in this state of slight movement but otherwise stillness. It's pretty horrible, but I have cut so much out of the story already and there's still so much that has yet to be added despite how much I've already written that it's sort of ridiculous. 
> 
> I don't have a beta, and I'm notoriously terrible at editing my own work, so sorry about that but that's just how it is, even if I don't like it as much as you might. That being said, hopefully I get chapter ten written because I wanted it to be Regina-centric and then Jefferson showed up and he's so unknown and chaotic that I'm drawn to writing about him, so I'm having to force myself into writing Regina and Emma but at the same time, I have so many ideas for what's going to happen that I'm once again at a standstill.

It was the third day in Storybrooke, and she was wary of Regina despite her otherwise kind intentions. The woman seemed eager to offer her a home, and a part of her was suspicious by this behaviour, but she remembered Regina’s comment about being a single parent, and maybe she just needed a little help. Since she was technically Henry’s birth mother, it wouldn’t hurt to have some time to know him, and if Regina liked, she would happily take over the small slice of heaven practically pulled from a top hat. Where are all the pretty white rabbits? Well, her white rabbits came in the form of people who actually seemed to like her enough to not throw her out. Caution was definitely needed because it seemed too good to be true, but otherwise, she had done worse things for less and she was going to enjoy this while it lasted, and if it was permanent, then she’d spend it like everyday was her last. 

That being said, she woke up to a delicious smell and went running downstairs to find Regina dressed in a skirt suit sipping a cup of coffee while Henry poked at a bowl of oatmeal, not looking up at anyone. When she entered the room, she caught both of their attention and she offered a little wave, feeling entirely underdressed considering she was wearing sweats and a tank top. She hadn’t thought that anyone got up early, but in hindsight, Regina definitely looked like a morning person (like an ‘all-the-time’ person honestly). 

“I picked some fresh apples,” Regina said. “Henry is refusing to eat them, but I thought someone around here might appreciate some of the literal fruits of my effort.” Without wasting time, Emma took the apple handed to her and ignored when Henry shouted it was poisoned because really? She took a bite and she nodded her head and smiled. She liked cold apples and typically bought them pre-peeled and cut because she didn’t have the time, but the mottled yellow and red apple was as big as her hand and one of the sweetest yet refreshing fruits she could remember tasting. 

The apples would make damn good cider, or lunch, everyday because they  _ smelled _ like the earth, like a sweet bunch of grass and apple blossoms. The stuff you could find pre-bottled at Bath and Body Works. When she looked up and away from the apple, she met Regina’s eyes and quickly looked away. She felt stupid, but she wiped the bits of juice from the corner of her mouth with the back of her hand. 

“It’s the best apple I’ve ever eaten,” she said, hoping that Regina caught her sincerity. Why didn’t the woman own an orchard? She’s got a green thumb or something. Maybe someone else has the orchard, but the fact there were apple trees littered around her property, left her with the feeling Regina tended to them herself. Also, it made sense considering Henry’s insistence that she was the Evil Queen. Apples really did make sense in that context. 

“And what apples do you typically eat?” 

“The peeled ones that come in little bags,” she said. The repulsion on Regina’s face was worth the rather unpleasant admission. She held the apple and took another bite, clearly not poisoned or dying. “Yeah, that’s the face I make when I eat ‘em, but I just… I don’t know, but this is to die for.” 

“People  _ have _ died for them,” Henry muttered under his breath at the table. She offered a smile to Regina, but she realized her ability to non verbally offer comfort was limited to hugging and she doubted a woman as composed as Regina wanted her unshowered, slightly sweaty self to wrap her in a bear hug. They didn’t feel very nice when it was a stranger, it felt wonderful when the person was someone you cherished, she knew because she’d seen the joy on other peoples’ faces with their families and what not. 

“Well, I’ll eat any apple you give me. I’m not joking, I’ll literally eat any apple you give me.” 

Regina smiled and raised her brows for a moment before picking up her cup of coffee. It wasn’t even seven-thirty in the morning and the woman’s makeup was perfect, not a smudge to be seen, and her clothes were neatly pressed, not a misplaced wrinkle or crease in the fabric that she could see, and even her hands were pretty, slim and graceful in a way that made those pointed, black nails look a little dangerous in the most wonderful way possible. She should probably stop staring at her new… landlord? Friend? Well, staring was rude, and she pulled her eyes away. 

“Thank you. I take pride in my apples. I’ve been growing them for years, after all,” Regina said. She looked over at Henry who had his back to her and shook her head slightly before taking a sip of her coffee. “It’s almost time to go, Henry. C’mon, get your backpack, we’re leaving soon. And you, Ms. Swan, would you like to look around town today? Maybe get a feel of the land? We’re all pretty close knit around here, it’s sort of endearing, but if you’d rather find something else to do…” 

“No, I think I’ll wander around. I saw the gas station and Granny’s but not much else. Uh, can I give you my number, I mean, I’m sure you have everything under control, but if you need anything…” Henry was staring at them, and she fumbled to dig in her pockets for a phone she didn’t have. Regina laughed, deep and rich but not mocking in anyway, and pulled a piece of paper out and wrote her phone number down. She slid it towards her on the counter so she could pick it up. “Thank you.” 

“You’re welcome,” Regina pushed herself away from the counter and walked around the kitchen. As Regina walked around, Emma had to consciously avoid looking at her because she didn’t do romance, she didn’t believe in the whole ‘love’ or ‘care’ thing, she knew it didn’t exist, but she could appreciate Regina. There was a lot to appreciate, but there could be nothing of any kind involved, even though Regina struck her as a woman with a secret boy-toy, but that was probably for the best considering that if Emma had been just a little too drunk to use her basic judgement, she would have proposition Regina already, and still, it had only been a day and a half in town, even less actually with Regina. “Come on, or Mary Margaret will be displeased.” Henry shrugged his backpack over his shoulders and walked up to her, tilting his head back to look at her. 

“Don’t fall for her charm. Remember, she’s the Evil Queen.” 

“And who am I then? Snow White?” she asked, immediately regretting the harsh and slightly cruel tone she had used. He shook his head. 

“No, not Snow White. I already told you, Snow’s your mom.” Before he could say much of anything else, Regina was calling his name and he scampered off to school like most kids his age would. She wondered who she was in Henry’s fantasy world. Maybe he had yet to picture one considering he just met her, or maybe he had sought her out with a character in mind. The latter certainly seemed to be the more likely of the two, but then who was she supposed to be? Maybe it was better she didn’t know, maybe she’d prove that she isn’t the character he thought at all and he’d realize that it’s all just fiction. She took the piece of paper upstairs to the room she was staying in and programmed it into her phone before getting ready to go out. There seemed to be a decently eventful day ahead of her, if eventful meant she’d be looking at things and talking to strangers and near-strangers. Well, maybe she’d get to learn a bit more about Regina and Henry at the very least. This was the fastest ‘move in with us’ moment she had ever undergone before, but unlike those times where everything felt sudden and overwhelming, it just felt… like maybe this was right where she belonged. Like this place could be her roots, officially, and the idea didn’t sound all that bad, even if she had become a leech to a gorgeous woman and her son that was also her son as well in different ways. 

***

Going to her grand office was no longer amusing or spectacular in any way. It had become routine, and therefore mundane. She was forced into the same box day in and day out, and while she loved the control, the amount of work in the political world surrounding their smaller semi-land in the Land Without Magic was absolutely ridiculous and would honestly be far easier and less confusing should they allowed kingdoms to form and govern individually rather than uniting things. It was ridiculous. Allies ment allies, not that they were the same governed body with a single mix of politicians constantly contradicting each other. 

Otherwise, her walk to the office was nice considering the ground was covered in dark, lush grass, and the apple trees were neatly trimmed by her because she couldn’t trust anyone else to care for their intense maintenance. She unlocked the door to the building and then the door to her office and settled behind her desk, glaring holes into the pile of papers that were required that day at the end of the office hours, which was five in the evening. So, because she had chosen this, and these were her duties to fulfill, she started working on them. 

Nobody said her happily ever after would be easy, but she was very content with her life, with her son. Things were going well, and then Emma Swan came back with Henry in the car from god-knows-where, and she was then introduced to the woman that the rumors said would defeat her. The woman with the power to single handedly break the Dark Curse she had settled and take away whatever happiness she had finally found for herself. Instead of fighting her and forcing her to clutch desperately at the joy left in her life, she could feel it like pleasant electricity brushing over her skin, and she knew that it would be so much easier to win her to her side. In this world she had few allies that she could trust to know her beyond the character she had become, but this mystery saviour was desperately grasping for a happily ever after as well, she could see it in the defeated and jaded way she held herself, the way she spoke, the expressions from her mousy-but-cute face and especially perfect arched eyebrows that could tell any entire play by themselves should she wish it, Regina bet. 

There was a knock on her door not an hour since she arrived and she shouted for them to come in, hand holding her face as she propped herself up to read one of the longest, boring, and absolutely meaningless proposals from some of the local shops had sent to her for review. Of course she read it, but only to see how truly desperate they were for change, and considering their wishes were for wild and gregarious, they would have to wait a little longer. They wanted one thing, less tax on their land, less tax on imported goods, and most pointedly the fact that Mr. Gold was running among them and pulling funding which they sighted as a horrible miscarraige of his financial power, but as she always thought to herself, it was technically legal and therefore it was nothing more than a complaint from people who clearly couldn’t read the fine print. 

The near-silent shuffling clued her into who was in her office and she flipped the cover page back over the proposal and looked up at Sidney Glass. She walked forward and tossed a copy of the day’s paper on her desk. She stared at it like the head of her child because the sheer audacity to take such liberties with her of all people. She stood up and picked up the paper, holding the gray pages and frowning upon seeing the large, bolded title: EMMA SWAN PUBLIC MENACE. This is not what she had requested from him, if anything it had been the opposite of a smear campaign. She threw the paper on her desk and walked around the dark wood she so often judged others behind and leaned against it. Had she been in the Enchanted Forest, she would have slapped him, or rather she would shake his frame for sure, but that wasn’t a tolerable action here, it was abuse and assault, neither things that she needed associated with her name in any capacity. 

Glass looked at her with the typical hooded eyes and otherwise relaxed and calm look of silent discontent with the world around him, and she crossed her arms. There was only the subtle raising of his right brow that indicated that he even knew what he had done wrong. Without speaking he reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a manilla file with EMMA SWAN written on the appropriate tab. She flipped it open and saw records from juvenile detention centers, skirmishes with the law, a variety of other reports made about her to a variety of sources who were willing to send the information to Glass in the one day limit she had given him. She was begrudgingly impressed with his efficiency. 

“I take it you’re impressed?” he asked. She closed the file with a single hand and twisted to set it on the desk behind her. The beginning of a smirk quickly washed from his features, as it should be. “I have… misstepped?” 

“This slander, I suggest you take it back, repair her image because she’s staying, for much longer than you could keep your business running if I have any say in it,” she said. With a single nod of his head she exhaled hot air that had filled her chest as she threatened him. The silence was filled with questions that she would rather not ask, but perhaps it would be in everyone’s best interests if she prepared for Emma’s fixture to their town and let everyone know how  _ dear _ she was to her. 

“I feel there is something you’re not telling me.” 

“Do I look like a fool, Glass? Just retract your blatant libel and make sure  _ everyone _ knows that she is safe and staying for a few months at the least. There is something… special about her, and I need her to recognize her allies and pick the enemies from the pond, do you understand?” 

“Yes, ma’am. And the fact that she’s Henry’s biological mother?” She felt the hollows of her jaw tensing, muscles and nerves twitching because if she moved any other part of herself she knew it would end in a mess. 

“That information isn’t public record, so I suggest you keep it to yourself for now. Please, leave my office, Mr. Glass.” With a dramatic bow, Glass stalked out of the office as silently as he had entered and she walked to gently push the doors shut despite the urge to slam them. She went back to her desk. It hadn’t even been a week and already her few allies believed she wanted the ‘intruder’ gone when it was anything but. She thought her more intelligent associates would recognize an opportunity, but she also knew that they weren’t nearly as creative and wondrous as they had been when they had resided in the Enchanted Forest. 

The newspaper was likely circulating around town, and she didn’t even have Emma’s phone number… wait! She dug through the file on the woman and thankfully found a number, one marked as ‘recent’ and called. She was so relieved when she heard her on the other end. 

“I’m so sorry for disrupting your morning. It’s Regina. I’ve just seen a copy of the paper and I’m afraid it’s a rather harsh breakdown of your person, and I want you to know that I’m trying to fix it. I’m so sorry that this is how you’re welcomed into our town. I will see to it that the author of the piece recieves some form of punishment.” 

“Hey, it’s no problem. Not the first time someone decided to air my dirty laundry,” Emma said over the phone, far too relaxed and casual for her liking. How often did things like this happen to the woman? She restricted it, but she felt the stirring of pity in her chest that she roughly shoved away and locked up. She parted with a typical ‘goodbye’ and looked down at the information in the folder. This is not what she needed or wanted to deal with, especially not so soon, but the promising endgame was worth all the trouble and tiresome, tedious work she would be putting into it. 

***

She had gotten a strange call from Regina only a few seconds before she saw a man sitting and reading the newspaper,  _ The Mirror _ , which had her mugshot on the cover and a rather unflattering title. She decided to ignore it because what else could she do? She couldn’t do anything about it at this point but try to recover from the mess it would inevitably make. She walked into Granny’s Diner, knowing that it was quaint and cozy just from the view through the window, but the brief stay when she first got there was also a point of reference. She hadn’t met people, per se, but she planned on getting something sweet and just trying to see what she could figure out from the patrons lazing about. She took a table in the back and a cute thing showed up with a notepad in her hands. She had streaks of red through her hair and otherwise dressed in red and black, which almost reminded her of Red Riding Hood, the fairytale she had heard many times at school in her youth, much to the disdain of many adults back then, but kept the parallels to herself. Maybe she could understand where Henry came from, but she also knew what was real and what wasn’t, it wasn’t a delusion, it was a comparison. 

“Oh hello there,” the girl said rocking forward on her heels like she was excited. “What can I get for ya?” 

“I think I saw some sugar cookies over there, so a coffee and a cookie.” 

The woman scribbled in the notepad and smiled, shoving that and her pen into her apron, “Alrighty! I’ll be right back.” Like she said, the woman was back very quickly with coffee and a cookie, and she went about fixing up her coffee only for the woman to slide into the seat across from her. This wasn’t something she’d seen or experienced in bigger cities, but she understood the casual atmosphere considering how close things were, how close Regina said they were. She smiled and watched as the girl propped herself up on her elbow and looked across the table at her with long, fluttering lashes. Her eyeliner was curled perfectly cat-like, and her lips were brighter than a ruby but not nearly as radiant as the gem itself. Despite the lipstick, her teeth glimmered white rather than the typical discolouration due to the reflection of colour. She was, admittedly, attractive. 

“So, you are…” She looked at her nametag. How silly, but fitting all things considered. “Ruby? Well, Ruby, I’m Emma.” 

“I saw you the other morning, and it looks like you’re staying. We don’t get new people here, as I’m sure you know by now. I hear that you’re staying with Mayor Mills from the grapevine, is there any attachment there? Perhaps a secret partner from far away? Maybe a dastardly ex?” 

“Oh, uh… well, nope, none of that.” She was thrown off by her gregarious nature, so bright and blunt. It was actually very interesting and something she preferred beyond the layers upon layers of lies that most people liked to weave around themselves. No. Ruby struck her as the type to speak before thinking and never beat around the bush if she could help it. The direct approach was appreciated greatly, and even brought a smile to her face. 

“Can I ask what it is then?” 

“You can definitely ask, but I might not answer,” she said. Ruby’s lips pulled up, tighter before relaxing. Either way, her lips were pulled thin, revealing a mouth of pearly teeth that were a little larger than her own, a little… reminiscent of a vampire almost. She was beautiful in a ‘vampire’ way, definitely radiated the same sort of superior and outgoing behaviour as she read about in many books. “But, to answer your question, I’m new here and Regina offered me some space. I’m thankful for her generosity and I’m just--” 

“You like her, don’t you?” Ruby laughed. “Your face is getting all red, look at your blotchy neck--!” 

“Red Lucas!” The loud call caught her attention as well as Ruby’s and they looked to the side where an older woman stood, hands on her hips, glasses sliding down her nose as she displayed the coined ‘mom look’ that she had heard so much about and found to be a skill that only mothers could truly master for some reason. “You have a job to be done, don’t you?” 

“Everyone seems happy here to me, Gran,” Ruby said, giving her grandmother large, green puppy eyes. Emma almost felt bad for diverting her attention from her job and took a bite of her cookie, trying to find something to keep her busy lest she say something stupid and ruin any relationships with the people before she even got to know their names. Ruby got up with a huff and winked before pulling the notepad from her apron and walking around with her clicking stilettos and checking up on everyone. Suddenly there was another person sliding into the seat across from her. A ten year old set a mug of steaming cocoa sprinkled with cinnamon down and slid it across the table to her. She already had her snack, but she couldn’t deny free cocoa. 

The issue was that the patron was Henry, a little boy who was supposed to be in school. She knew Regina would be upset if her son was caught skipping out on classes, especially since he was so young, too young for that sort of trouble, and she sighed, giving him a once over. She didn’t want to be ‘that lady’ but sometimes she couldn’t be everyone’s friend, in fact, she rarely was, although the more she saw the more she felt like this could be a place she could enjoy living in. 

“I take it Regina thinks you’re in class,” she said. 

“Of course she does, but school isn’t important right now. I needed to talk to you where she couldn’t hear.” 

“I’ll listen to you on the way to school, how about that? I’ll walk you there and you can talk to me all you want. School’s important, you need to learn those things to survive, and I’m sure that basic education is the same no matter where you live, even if you have wings or not.” Emma paid quickly for her own items and for the cocoas from Henry, taking note of the added cinnamon in both mugs, a genetic trait it seemed, or maybe Regina just taught him well. 

She held Henry’s hand as he demanded and they walked down the street. She followed his directions seeing as she had no idea where to go. Henry was quiet at first, pointing at things and shrugging his shoulders whenever she asked for an explanation as to why it was somehow relevant and important enough to mention. It wasn’t until they were walking across a crosswalk that Henry finally decided to speak up. 

“I know you don’t believe me right now, but you’ve gotta. The curse is ruining lives, and you’re the only one who can help fix it. We need to start by making sure that my mom can’t hurt you. I know you like her, but you don’t know her, and she’s the evil queen, no matter what you think. It’s just who she is. Can’t you see that she’s dangerous?” The worst part was he was so genuine about this issue. He truly believed it and the belief of his delusion worried her far more than it probably should have. She didn’t know why he had fixated on this, but she knew it wouldn’t end well for anyone. She sighed and tried to think of an appropriate response. “The newspaper this morning? That was done by her, because you’re the saviour and she wants you to leave. You can break the curse--” 

“Henry, buddy, your mom called me and told me it was an accident, that she was punishing the man responsible for printing so much about me for no reason. I don’t know any laws on that, but I’m sure she’ll find a way, she’s nifty like that. Your mom has only been kind to me, I can’t bring myself to believe she’s the evil queen, a queen perhaps, but not evil.” 

“But… that’s not how the story goes. This isn’t how it’s supposed to be.” 

“What do you mean by that?” 

With a deep breath in preparation for a rant, Henry started, “Well, you’re supposed to fight and then you’re supposed to rescue everyone and give them their memories back, but my mom isn’t supposed to be friends with you, she’s your enemy. She caused this and you’re the only one who poses a threat to her, she wants to keep you from taking away her happiness--” 

“I don’t see why anyone would take away someone’s happiness, evil queen or not,” she said, harshly cutting him off. His mouth snapped shut and she sighed. How was she supposed to talk to the kid? How was she supposed to do anything of the sort. She and kids weren’t supposed to cross, they didn’t mix, and she really didn’t know how to handle him in any way beyond childishly tattling on him to Regina who seemed to know what to do about all of his issues thus far. 

“She’s a villain. She can’t win.” 

“She’s a person with complex emotions and motives. Everyone, no matter how evil someone claims them to be, deserves a chance at happiness.” She stopped them, seeing the school just up ahead. She got on one knee in front of him. “You need to believe me when I tell you this, but Henry, stories are stories for a reason. Say this was all real, then remember that history is written by the victors, and from what you’ve read to me, it seems like the evil queen is a victim time and time again to one deep pain to another with little reprieve. If she’s the evil queen then I think she deserves that happiness now. It would be unfair and cruel to force her to suffer just because she wasn’t the happy princess like Snow White, like whoever else, uh, Cinderella and the mice or something like that. 

“ _ Everyone _ should be able to get a ‘happily ever after,’ because otherwise the world wouldn’t be worth suffering through.” 

On that cheery note, she took him up to the school and walked him towards the office to sign him in as being late rather than absent. She ran into his teacher, a waifish little thing, Mary Margaret, while she was there. She greeted her politely, aware that the woman likely saw the news, but also aware that she had yet to mention anything about her past, and stuck almost entirely to how she knew Henry and how he was feeling. Of course, she admitted that Henry was family but Regina was and always would be his mother. Henry held her hand and tugged at her arm. 

“You said Snow White,” he said. She nodded because yes, she had mentioned Snow White earlier. Why should only the ‘good’ guys get joy and love? Peace and true affection? It was unfair, and even in her youth she thought similarly knowing from an early age that she would never be a princess, she would almost always be the evil queen, or more often, the hunter or knight. “She’s Snow White.” 

“You’re so silly,” Mary Margret said, waving her hand and holding her clipboard to her chest before offering her hand to Henry who took it. “I’ll make sure he gets back to class. Thank you Ms. Swan.” In response, she nodded. The woman, an enthusiastic and probably very gentle and generous teacher, waved and led Henry from the office and out towards the hallways leading to what seemed to be classrooms. She turned back to the front desk and signed her name, pulling out her phone to send a text to Regina about what had happened, trying to reassure her that Henry was back at school and that she wasn’t sure how he managed to slip out but that she could walk him to school to make sure he didn’t skip. As soon as it sent, she felt like she had pushed the boundaries too far, like the unsteady foundation she was creating could shake and piles of rubble would bury her if she wasn’t careful. She wasn’t exactly the best at being ‘careful,’ especially when she found someone who was actually interesting enough to know beyond superficial adoration. 

Thankfully she was back out and meeting a few people, wandering into some rather neat shops all settled in town. It was truly compact yet comfortably cozy rather than encumbered with a population too dense to be supported. The town seemed to be perfectly sized, just enough room for everyone, to a point it seemed almost magical. Of course the idea of magic being involved only amused her at this point, never really an idea she could wrap her head around anytime in the past and very unlikely in the future. Still, it was nice, and she felt like maybe this wouldn’t be as difficult to make work as she had originally thought (easy and comfortable enough to do as she wished and actually stick around). 

***

Only under the pretense of speaking of Henry’s progress did she visit Dr. Hopper. Back home she would have never risked opening up to anyone, ever, but here there were no boundaries that limited her. There was no code of conduct she was expected to follow, and the residents feared her, yes, but not because she could murder them or rip their hearts out. Here she was allowed to have moments of humanity, fleeting seconds of peace, and Dr. Hopper worked well with Henry, and sometimes Regina needed help as well but rarely did she dare mention her plight to anyone but herself. Knowledge was sacred because it was dangerous, but Dr. Hopper wouldn’t betray her trust, and even if he did, she could talk around most questions, vaguely asking for guidance without giving too much away after all. 

So she sat with her legs crossed on the comfortable-but-old couch while Archie sat across from her. A light-stained, wooden coffee table separated them. Here she wasn’t the Evil Queen, here she was Regina Mills, a single mom, the mayor, and a perfectly respectable if not intimidating woman with power, but still, she had changed quite a bit, loneliness and a fake life could change anyone, but there were still less desirable…  _ urges _ . The temptation to smite or murder those who irritated her, to kill indiscriminately when she was enraged, to fight with magic and constantly gain the upper hand with those who underestimated her power despite been giving reasons to never stop learning that she understood and could melt into a fury of chaos. Now her only options were to ignore them during meetings at the Town Hall and putting in a few calls to find someone to use against them and force them to emotionally suffer. 

Armed with the knowledge that Emma would most definitely start to change things, that her presence fixed the frozen clock, was enough to start her mind. Even if the taste of magic hadn’t slapped her in the face upon meeting her, she believed that she would likely be drawn to her. However, she doubted that anyone could foresee the once great Evil Queen behaving civilly with someone who could be considered a threat to her and her life. There was something about loneliness, and she knew well that it was easier to catch a fairy with honey than a net. 

“What can I help you with today, Ms. Mills? I believe we’ve recently spoken about Henry’s progress.” 

“I apologize for the intrusion, this isn’t about Henry. I was curious if perhaps we could speak. I can properly pay you for your services of course, but I find myself in need of… guidance, of a sort.” She must have spooked Arhcie because he looked entirely confused, baffled even. He composed himself in record speed and nodded, flipping a few pages over in his notebook and pulling a pen from the table before them. 

“That’s quite alright. What is it you need to talk about? Know that you’re in a safe and judgment free environment. This is personal and it will never be shared to anyone else, so don’t feel like you should hold back on the possibility this could be a mistake. It’s not, it’s healthy.” 

“It’s about Ms. Swan,” she said, smoothing the skirt over her thighs and knees. She looked at her hands fiddling with the fabric in the most respectable way once could fumble nervously. “She’s kind, and she has offered me comfort and the possibility of friendship more than once, yet it has only been a few days. Frankly, I’m nervous because I’ve never… this has never happened to me before.” Dr. Hopper nodded and scribbled something down in his notes before looking up at her. He adjusted his glasses on his nose and crossed his legs much like she did. He looked at her with a warm sort of concern, like he was genuinely interested and like he truly cared about her situation and planned to help in any way he could. 

“Please forgive me if this sounds crude, but I’ve never seen you with a significant other. Perhaps you’re lonely, and she has somehow reminded you that there was a goodness in people, that people can care about you, because Ms. Mills--” 

“Regina.” Archie nodded at her correction. 

“Regina, then. People care about you. Not everyone comes with a price, sometimes, well, she’s only been here, but perhaps what you feel is simply excitement for the possibilities in the future with Ms. Swan, and I know how much you love Henry, everyone does, and I believe that Ms. Swan, from what I gathered from the paper, although I assure you I read between the lines, she’s never had a family either, and has always been on her own and Regina? You have Henry, but otherwise… maybe you want a family.” 

“I have a family,” she said. He nodded his head and held a hand out in defense. 

“Yes, I know, forgive me. That was a poor choice of word. What I meant is: you can  _ expand _ your family. Perhaps that’s something she reminded you was possible. Or perhaps she’s just a good person and you have a rather negligible amount of people that seem to consider you their friend, and just as few you see as potential friends on your part.” He wrote a few more notes before looking back at her. “But I know you didn’t come to hear that. What is it that you really want? I’ll try my best as someone who cares, and is in the business of helping people, to offer my services to you. I want to help, because I know that you’re a good woman, even if you are admittedly terrifying at times.” He smiled, amused by his words, and Regina felt herself also sort of happy because he just said she was good, and the tone convinced him that he believed it. 

For a moment she took her time trying to formulate a response, but she had never bared her soul like this, not really, and definitely not to anyone who could use it against her like her former ‘friends’ from the Enchanted Forest, as few as they may be considering she sacrificed many of those people for her own gains. Some of them were in the town, and just didn’t know it, except one. He was well aware of both his life in the Enchanted Forest and now here, and it was cruel, but he had earned his punishment by… well, there had definitely been a reason at some point… actually, it was probably just her ridding of a threat with trickery. How he gave to Storybrooke she had no idea considering she didn’t pull anything from Wonderland, yet he was now trapped here, out of the city official limits but not outside the forest that they own. She hadn’t seen him for twenty-eight years now. 

She had ruined so many people, and while most deserved it and worst, there were some people that she had abandoned just because she was the Evil Queen, it was what they expected from her, and it was easier than breathing to hurt people, which had at one point terrified her. It had been years since she had been scared of her own inability to make connections based on true affection and desire, but now it seemed much less like the advantage she had originally thought it to be and more of an illness she couldn’t seem to recover from. 

“I see how happy Henry makes her, she can level with him in a way I seem to be unable to. The issue I’m having comes from a secret I’ve kept for quite some time, and I know that she will inevitably force me to speak of the issue, and I fear that when the time comes, she’ll hate me for keeping it from her,” she said. He nodded his head as she spoke, his eyes narrowing as he observed her form, possibly seeing something she no longer knew how to recognize herself. “If she leaves, Henry will be hurt….” 

“But Henry wouldn’t be the only one with the desire to form an attachment with her, yes?” 

“Yes,” she said, forcing the otherwise silent words from her lips. She hadn’t admitted to such a weakness in… she couldn’t even remember the last time it happened, when she truly spoke to someone, no matter how little she could speak of or without any context given on her part. Trust was difficult when everyone she loved eventually turned against her, when everyone she had thought trustworthy showed their true, hideous colours and smothered her with their abuse. 

“It’s only been a couple of days since she got here,” Archie said, reminding her harshly, although she doubted he meant for his words to seem as damaging as it felt, that she had no real knowledge of her person, nothing beyond what she had heard, what she had vaguely planned for, but mostly that good things were rare to come by, and this was unlikely to be the exception to the rule forbidding her happiness even here, even where she was supposed to be free of the fickle webs of the magical world. 

In the end, she remained quiet and unresponsive until she decided it was best to just leave. She apologized for her intrusion and left before he could try and keep her from running. That’s all she ever did, run. She ran from her problems, from her home, from everything whenever the world got too hard to handle. 

There would be no time to break down or otherwise regret and stew over her actions. She would focus singely on moving forward, the future and how she could twist it to her will. She wanted to be in control of the change to keep herself more protected than the others. She needed protection, she was the one they all wanted dead, of course she was hurt by them and in turn hated them for their constant judgement in their previous lives. She pulled the collar of her slim peacoat up to keep her pink cheeks and ears from getting too cold and rubbed her hands together, the gloves providing minimal warmth. There were things to be done, and she needed to sort things out neatly so she would be aware of what could go wrong, she needed to plan for every possible outcome rather than cling to the one she wished for. After all, she had never been good, she had never been the heroine, she had only ever been a villain, and no matter the world, it seemed that the villains were always alone and crippled in the end. It was only a matter of time before she too fell to those around her. 

***

Honestly, she had no idea why she was sitting in a cold cell. The bench was metal and the cold seeped through her jeans and through her legs no matter what position she sat in, and her ankle was still injured from the fight. On the other side of the bars, some brat blatantly tried to steal her wallet and keys. He wasn’t a child, per se, he was maybe nineteen, either way, he was young but that didn’t give him any excuse to steal, and when she tried to pull her things from his grip, tight and unyielding much like she considered herself, he threw the first punch and she may have punched back. He had been just a little luckier than her because when she shifted her weight to move out of the way of his wool-covered knuckles, she fell back in a small hole in the asphalt and fell to the side, twisting her ankle as well as landing on it. The people in the nearby shops rushed out to find her on the ground. The boy  _ lied _ to the observers and soon enough she was a wolf and the pitchforks were armed and she was barely able to survive the chaos before the sheriff rushed in and ‘saved’ her, although he cuffed her and threw her in the car. 

Alright… so she had a vague idea of why she was forced in a cell, but no matter what happened, she knew that Regina would be more than upset with her. It had been a day and not only would her bio-kid think he was related to some child abuser, but his mom would kick her to the curb to keep Henry safe. The hardest part was that she would understand if she was told to take a hike. Maybe she jumped too soon, maybe she was desperate, but desperation typically led to some less-than-pleasant situations as she knew too well. 

Of all the people to come to her rescue Mary Margaret, a stranger, wasn’t even on her list of possibilities. But Mary Margaret came to collect her and take her back to her home where she would be awaiting news on what was happening about the assault she may be charged with. She didn’t speak to either Henry or Mary Margaret, entirely sure of her fate when she returned to the manor she had been staying in. The manor that was so beautiful, the manor with a magnificent lawn and perfectly trimmed apple trees just hanging with apples that made her mouth water on sight, and an otherwise refined lot. A place far too perfect for broken goods like herself, and it had been so horribly stupid to think anything different would happen here. 

She couldn’t speak to Mary Margaret, and Henry walked inside the house with her and spoke about his stories as he did so. He spoke of a rather brutal tale about a man trapped by an evil queen, surprisingly this queen wasn’t the one Regina was supposed to be, this queen was the infamous Queen of Hearts that Helena Bonham Carter made… well, she made her something for sure. In the book, as he pointed to the pictures, the queen looked oddly familiar in a way that made her think she may have seen someone like that in passing but not recognizable otherwise. The man who had been beheaded looked like a kicked puppy who happened to be a lunatic, but she couldn’t recognize him at all, he was simply too stylized. She wondered if they were also in Storybrooke like Henry claimed about some of the others. Huh, the book looked small but it was still only half open yet the page number was two hundred and three. It didn’t truly register beyond that, though, because it was likely just a result of the dramatic lighting around her. 

She listened with half an ear and sat on the couch, considering loading the car early so she could leave without all the fuss, but Regina came home around five-thirty and walked into the house without speaking at all. She took off her coat and set her small handbag on the little end table near the couch Emma sat on. She took off her heels and took a deep breath before sitting down across from her. Henry had gotten very quiet and stared at his mother while Emma tried to hide her face without looking like she was nervous, it was harder to do than she had thought it would be in theory. 

“Did you do today’s homework?” Regina asked, looking at Henry. The boy shook his head and she nodded up at the stairs. Henry carried the book under his arm and walked up the stairs at a languid pace and definitely not all the way up. Despite him listening in, Regina turned to her and she prepared for a tongue lashing. She expected a, ‘after I welcome you in my home out of the goodness of my heart’ and ‘apparently you don’t care as much as you led us to believe’ or the worst case, ‘did you really think you’d be allowed to stay here after you proved yourself a danger to my son and I.’ She could actually hear Regina putting Henry above herself, especially his safety, in the head-lecture she was giving herself. 

After the silence became overwhelming, Emma said, “It wasn’t what it looked like. I promise, I’d never hurt a kid just because… just because he was being stupid. He hit me first and I know I should’ve been the adult but--” 

“Are you alright?” 

“What?” she leaned forward. Had that just come out of her mouth? Really? Concern for her? 

“I asked if you’re in pain. You have a cut on your eyebrow,” Regina said, her tone frank and almost dismissive despite the words themselves leading her to believe that she was actually concerned. It must have been in her head. She reached up to touch the cut on her eyebrow. She hadn’t even noticed and nobody had mentioned it. She pulled away some flaking blood on her fingertips and only noticed that Regina had a cloth in her hand and moved forward to wipe the blood away with gentle strokes so as to not irritate the small wound and reopen it. Where had that come from? 

“I’m fine, thanks. I didn’t even realize I was bleeding.” 

Once again it grew silent and Regina pulled the cloth away before moving just enough so she could sit on the loveseat beside her. She folded the cloth in her hand and rested it on her lap that still had a tight fabric of a black pencil skirt over her thighs. 

“The man, he’s fine if you’re concerned. He was paid by someone he refuses to mention to make you leave. Violence seemed a good way to force you away on top of the nasty news spread in the newspapers today. I don’t know who it was, but there are only so many people with an amount of cash to have paid the man, and each one will be looked into, just as the charges have been dropped.” 

“I’m so sorry. I know you’re giving me a chance, and still I blew it. I should have--” 

“Emma,” Regina said. She rested a soft hand on her own, her thumbs stroking over her knuckles. “There’s no need to apologize. I’ve actually found the possibility for a job if you’d like it. I’ve noticed you and Sheriff Graham didn’t really click per se, but he has the budget for a deputy and I think you’d do well in the field of saving people, helping people, and making sure the wrongdoers are punished appropriately.” 

As she spoke, Emma starred, shocked that she was being offered more despite the altercation. Regina hadn’t kicked her out, she cleaned her eyebrow, she had given her a job, she had given her a home and hope. It was so much, too much. Emma nodded, determined to not fail at the whole ‘good guy’ thing again. She was never the hero, she was just surviving in any way she could and sometimes that meant she had to do unsavory things. Everyone did bad things, everyone made mistakes, this was the real, it wasn’t some fairy tale where everything was all hunky dory, where the good and evil were in clear black and white. It was all shades of gray and sometimes the wrong thing ended up being the right thing and vice versa. 

She moved and pressed her lips against Regina’s, only pulling back a moment later. Regina looked uncomfortable, and she scooted away on the chair. 

“I-it wasn’t, I mean, it was, well, I just…” She was surprised her rather choppy sentence came out as articulated as it did. She had just messed up two seconds after deciding to not mess up again. Right. She was supposed to think and actually stick around, she couldn’t go burning bridges like she used to. Regina reached up and cupped her cheek before standing. 

“Dinner should be ready by seven. You’re free to join us, as you shall be for the next few weeks at least.” 

Regina walked to the kitchen, something different about her as she walked. She only saw her back, but there was something radiant, pleased, with her saunter as opposed to the brusque walk she had associated with the woman thus far. Maybe it was in her head, it probably was, and she mentally knocked herself down a peg or three because she had done one of the stupidest things ever and jeopardized whatever this could be twice in the same day. 

Once Regina was in the kitchen, Henry rushed back downstairs and flipped his storybook open. When he opened it to page seven hundred, and it was actually a part of a story she hadn’t seen or been told about yet, one that she hadn’t even known existed. Who were the characters? There were no names in the text that she could immediately pick out. 

On the page, there was a drawing of a blonde hunched over a table, magical looking instruments around them, and someone who look oddly like Regina holding a hand on this person’s back while a purple, wiggly ball of light shone from between them, red and blue on either side of the characters. She looked at Henry, unsure what he was trying to tell her. He looked at her with an expression of absolute devastation. 

“You were supposed to be good,” he said, leaving the book open on the coffee table and running through the room and into the kitchen where she could hear Regina cooking. She touched the book and looked at the pages, but there wasn’t anything that made sense, nothing beyond a complex explanation of magical theory that she could hardly understand in general, much less grasp in depth. It was just a book though, a children’s story book… but children’s books don’t have such descriptions, they didn’t have words like this, they didn’t have plots this dark, not in the modern age at least. She closed the book gingerly to keep her movements as quiet as possible. She walked towards the kitchen and saw Regina fumbling with whatever looked a little like some sort of pasta dish, but also a little bit like something mushy. Either way, she was trying, and at the table, Henry was doing what seemed to be homework. She watched them, recognizing the red glow from the phone Regina kept looking down at and it was so bizarre. 

It was just a book, but it was almost exactly like Regina looked in that moment, and when she forced herself to look away, she caught Henry staring. There was no hope or awe in his eyes, it was disappointment. She hated it, and she hated that she cared enough to hate it just as much. 

Magic wasn’t real, but sometimes it certainly seemed like it could exist, even if only in her mind. 


	4. Glitter On Your Feathers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How Jefferson escaped Wonderland.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, so this got pushed to the side, and I'm sorry about that. I'm trying to keep it Regina-centric because I love her, but I'm also obsessed with Jefferson because he didn't exactly get much building in the show due to Stan's Marvel contracts that sort of took precedence despite being a pivotal part of the show (so many things could have been done without actor limitations) but that's why fanfiction exists, so that I don't have to worry about live actors and budgets and all that boring (complicated) stuff. 
> 
> That being said, there are two sex scenes, and they both such so far (they're NOT in this chapter, though), but I'll try to make them better before anything is actually posted. That being said, I don't have a beta, and I skim because I'm a little lazy, but also want the story to come across for entertainment. It'd be better editted, I know, I think the same thing, but it's not because I'm (very) lazy.

It had been a trap, and he hadn’t seen it. He’d worked with her before, but he knew how cold she had become, and yet he somehow thought she wouldn’t screw him over. The sentiment was stupid in hindsight, she was called the Evil Queen for a reason, but as she watched Regina pull her father through the portal, abandoning him in the process, he felt  _ nothing _ . His feet were swallowed by the dirt trail beneath his soles, and he waited, numb and dead on the inside. He could hear the armor scratching and smashing against more armor getting closer and closer until there were guards gripping his arms. Like magic, his feet were released, and he was dragged away by knights with loyalty to another queen that would likely torture him. 

He was forced to his knees before her, the Queen of Hearts, even worse, Regina’s mother. He remembered a rather fun and exciting day, another near-death experience, when they stole a heart from her. That being said, if Regina was cold, he knew and expected her mother to be twice as brutal. 

The spade of a spear pressed between his shoulder blades. It wasn’t hard enough to pierce his skin through his coat, but it still hurt and it reminded him that they could kill him at any second and he would be powerless to stop it. The Queen sat on her throne before him, looking down at him as if he were the scum of the earth, which was very possibly a title he could claim at this point. 

There had been a very good reason he hated Wonderland. He had lost someone there, but he had wanted to give Grace everything and Regina tempted him. How could he have done this to her? She didn’t even know the truth, but even without it, she never meant any less to him. She was his daughter, always would be, even if it her mother had called the Goblin King after her. Still, he felt cruel for having pried himself and their child from his lover’s fingers because he wanted to be around people again, he wanted Grace to know people too, but now, she wouldn’t even know her father. 

“How did you get to Wonderland?” she asked, her voice perfectly smooth, and abruptly distracting him from his thoughts. He refused to answer her, though, knowing that without his hat he was trapped. He hadn’t mastered portal travelling yet, not like his partner and teacher, but he would have to figure it out soon considering she got very upset far quicker than even his own unbalanced mind let him slide. Madness was expected, it came with the territory, but there was a difference between his own brand of unstable emotions and the callous and horrid behaviour of people like the Queen of Hearts and Regina. 

Despite her seething anger, he refused to speak, staring at her with a hollow gaze mimicking the apathy he felt as he was abandoned after because he had tried to do something for his friend. For a price of course, but they had known each other, they had learned and loved together, and then he was no longer important to her, and so she left him without a single glance. Without any thought for Grace and how she would grow up now. Without her father, either of them. 

The Queen of Hearts only waited so long before her impatience forced her to show her hand far too quickly, and with an immature yet deadly cry of anger it happened.  _ Off with his head _ , she said, and then he knew he would die without ever getting to remind Grace how much he loved her, to prepare for his lover to take her if that’s what she needed, which she likely would consider the dangers now in the Enchanted Forest. Dangers like Regina. 

As a portal jumper and a mediocre sorcerer, he wasn’t exactly stable enough to truly grow roots, to stay in one place, and his mind could snap back with the same force as reality around him tried to take him down. Despite this strength and tolerance he had thus far built up, he could see his body on the ground beneath him, and he felt so horribly cold. He realized that he was alive, but he was no longer connected to his body. 

They kept him like that until he admitted he came with his hat. He was a hatter, and he had managed to make a marvelous discovery that had changed his world entirely. If there were any others in Wonderland that could do as he did, he would have likely been left to suffer without a body but a still conscious in constant agony, but fortunately he was the only one who seemed to be able to tailor such a thing. His head was reattached, magic singed his throat and he immediately moved to cover the instantly shimmery scar. What was another to his collection? Well, this one was special, this one truly separated him from the human he thought he was, because nobody normal, even normal as he may have been long ago, would have survived that. Thankfully he had powers gifted by beings above those of their realm, their world. He could travel to many places, and it just so happened that only a few people realized he intruded. Only one of them decided they could love him, and he would forever be appreciative of him and all he had done for him. 

“Make it work,” he said, trying to say it differently this time. He had been stitching hats of all sorts and varieties together for days on end, taking small breaks to drink water and shove a few god awful scorched bread-ends into his mouth and return to sewing and crying. Everytime he spoke, which was growing more and more often as he now had the most wonderful conversations with himself. Honestly, if he had known he was this interesting he wouldn’t have bothered to make friends. He hadn’t even realized he liked the colour blue, and apparently the consensus that the elf from Faerun was truly the better bard as opposed to someone else he had once thought to be the greatest. He hadn’t realized how logical he could be. That was, he thought it all made sense, but even the diamond and heart guards around him seemed to think he had begun to lose his mind. 

The jokes on them, though, he hadn’t been sane to begin with and he found himself slowly and easily slipping back into a dark place he didn’t much care for yet he couldn’t hold on and keep himself from drowning in his misery. He took to crying on the hats as he pulled thread through horrible fabrics of all sorts of varieties all in the attempt to mix and match and make something work. He didn’t plan on letting the Queen of Hearts use it, of course, he just wanted to make on and  _ leave _ . He wanted to go home, he wanted to see his Grace again, he wanted to eat mushroom and leek soup every single night for weeks at a time because that was all he could afford and he made a terrible hunter unless he was killing rabbits. He was very,  _ very _ good at killing those swift bastards. The hunters in the area caught everything there was to catch before he could even attempt it, and the prices were too high for him since he had quit his profession. Portal jumping was very profitable because there weren’t many people who could do it and continued to do it for more than a few months, and there weren’t many people who could truly understand and create new portals from new information. That took months to do, but he had been one of the few to do so. That’s why it was  _ him _ that the Dark One chose, that’s why it was  _ him _ Regina needed, and that’s why it was  _ him _ who managed to make the damn hat work. 

Sadly, as he pulled the coarse, ratty string through the loop the hat began to make a wonderfully glorious purple portal, but it closed immediately after it opened, leaving a puff of purple smoke and magic in the air before it dissipated. 

With shaking hands, he rose to his feet and started to kick the damn things across the room, knocking down towers that reached twice and beyond his height and throwing needles and whatever else he could get his hands on. Finally, arms wrapped around him that he couldn’t shake off, and he was dragged as he struggled to get back to the workshop he had been forced into. He needed to get back. He could figure it out, he could make it work again, he just needed to be able to truly focus his magic. That was the true task. Anger worked very well for most magic, hatred was a great motivator, but he had been taught differently, he was taught about taking the innate will of that energy in him and using it to do as he wished. It was hard to learn, of course, but he had been doing so well. The talent of his portal jumping had only increased when he first began to learn. 

As he was dragged through the halls of the castle and through the corridors, he saw the treetops lit by a god awful bright sun. On the tree was an owl, brown, white, and entirely beautiful. He started to cry again and this time, as the guards dragged them, they slapped him in the head to get him to stop, but he couldn’t. He felt pathetic and weak for having needed assistance. The incompetence of his skills that showed were humiliating, and he knew if he hadn’t been the only hatter in the current realm he would have been murdered brutally months ago when he first tried to escape. Unfortunately he gave up after the thirteenth failed attempt. There was something beautiful about the number thirteen, and he knew as the last time was foiled as he ran through the man-eating hedges, he knew that he wouldn’t be able to attempt it any more, and he had been resigned to getting the damn thing to work. 

As usual he was thrown into a dungeon with a hole in the side of the wall, upper right corner of the cell and grass grew inside and over it seeing as it was just about level with the ground outside. He could get out if he had the proper potions, the mushrooms, any of the odd magical pastries left around by the horribly loud inhabitants seemed to forget more often than not. He didn’t reach up for the hole though. He curled up in the back corner and curled pieces of straw in his hands, his fingers feeling freed from holding a needle for hours and hours with little rest. He snapped the dried stalks between his fingers and finally leaned down to start making the cutest little doll he could. A tiny little scarecrow to keep him sane. 

Unfortunately the scarecrow was a dick and had to be destroyed after he insulted Jefferson’s favourite and only pair of socks. How dare the little bastard. For being held captive and having his head chopped off, he thought his socks really livened up his otherwise hollow shell. He had just got up, having water thrown on his again by a guard and started to shriek and shake at the bars deeply embedded into the stone above and below. More guards came, but then they were on the ground, asleep. He stopped making noises then. He could hear it, he could hear  _ them _ . From the corner of the cell he saw a fluffy blue and black pile of feathers and he reached forward and picked it up. The feathers turned into a very angry little goblin that pushed him away, but Jefferson held it to his chest and finally it stopped kicking him. 

“You found me,” he said. “You found me, you found me, you found me, and that means he’s here now. He’s here now. He’s… is he here now? Tell me Pip, is he here with you?” he looked at the little goblin in his hands and it opened its mouth wide and let out a laugh before wiggling out of his arms. He dropped to his knees. He wasn’t there, but he knew where he was, otherwise the goblin wouldn’t have been there. From beside the guards’ still bodies a caterpillar-like creature slunk forward and twisted, splitting into two of the hairy little fiends and they laughed, slamming their horned helmets against the bars of the cells opposite of him. “Stop! Stop it!” 

From behind the bars, he couldn’t reach the little devils to pull them back, but from the otherside a larger goblin came from the other cell, he rode a rotting dog towards his cell. This one was a general, that’s why he had a mount. Only special goblins had mounts, especially when their horned helmets were as bold and thick as this one’s. The closer he looked, the more he realised who it was. 

“Riff, Riff! You’re here. You’re here. You’ve found me. You’ve found me. You’ve found… is he here? He’s here. He’s here. He has to be here. There is no way he’s not here. Riff? Riff? Tell me is he here now? Is he here? Please tell me… TELL ME!” The goblin, Riff, ran away and hid like the other fiends. They were weak and easily scared away. It wasn’t the goblins that did the fighting in the Labyrinth, though, they were pawns, even those of higher rank, because the real fighters were the assorted creatures, almost all originally designed specifically by the Goblin King himself. 

Speaking of the Goblin King… 

“You’re here, You’re here. Oh, please be here. Please, please, please. I need you. Be here, be here now. I need you.” The pressure of the air around him felt too heavy to remain in place, so he slumped forward against the bars. “I need you. I need you. Grace needs you. Grace needs you. The goblins need to take her. They need to keep her safe. Please, I need to keep her safe. Please be here. I need you here. I need you--” 

“Here, perhaps?” a familiar voice asked. Jefferson’s body, despite his mind being alert and wanting nothing more than to move, felt too heavy to actually force around. Arms wrapped around him, but this time they were warm and covered only with the thin cloth of the King’s rather romantic wardrobe. He tried to twist around, to see him, to make sure he was really real, because there were so many things that he didn’t really know if they were real or not. 

A soft, deft hand cupped his grimy cheek and brushed the dirt and blood from his face. There he was. He was finally here now. A weight was lifted, and he was solid, he was real, and he was warm, he was so warm, and he smelled so good, like fresh peaches. 

“I tried, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m sorry. I couldn’t do it, I really couldn’t do it. I tried so hard. It was so hard, but I tried and I tried again and then I couldn’t try anymore, but even then I wanted to try but then I woke up and I failed. I failed. Oh, I failed so many times, too many times. So much. So often. I ruined everything. I ruined it. I did it all wrong. It was all wrong. Every single, teeny-weeny piece of everything I did was bad. Bad hatter. Bad hatter! I’m just a bad hatter -- so stupid. Also, so very stupid.” He closed his eyes after he finished. He didn’t know what else to say, and he hoped he conveyed what needed to be said properly. Now that he was safe, just a little more than before, he finally leaned forward and gripped the back of his vest with all his strength. “I lost her. I lost Grace. My little Grace. Poised, elegant, charming, neat little Grace. So tiny. Neighbours helped. They made really good bread for us. The neighbours helped. So much. I like the neighbours. Don’t kill the neighbours. I like the neighbours. They helped. They have Grace.” Jareth smiled down at him, one beautiful blue eye was always different, not because of the colours, but that little black dot, whatever it was (he didn’t really care what it was called), was only tiny on one eye, the other one was big. 

Those same eyes with honestly over-the-top kohl because who even cared, he was so damn pretty and he was so strong and Jefferson let himself fully relax. He heard Jareth’s voice echoing around him but otherwise he got comfortable and listened to the goblins as they squeaked and shouted at each other while trying to do the simple tasks that were far too difficult for such simple minded creatures. Finally, he was placed on the ground, a soft blanket, a furry pelt or some sort seemed more like it, and he had a cold kiss on his cheek before he woke up only a second later to another guard throwing water at him. He looked up and around and Jareth was gone, there wasn’t a goblin to be seen, and the guards were accompanied by The Queen of Hearts herself. They grabbed him from the stone floor, and he realized that his cozy cover was missing. He was dragged out of the castle, the guards following the Queen as she marched with a regal fury that looked a little different than what he remembered when his head was hanging in the throne room for about a week and a half. 

“Drop him here, we’ll let the land do the rest for us,” the Queen said, turning to glare at the two guards who promptly left. When they were alone, Jefferson was in a heap on the floor, and he reached out to touch the hem of her dress. She watched him intently with eyes that weren’t her own, and he brushed the fairy dust from her gown and slid back on his knees. With a little bit of smoke and glitter, Jareth was in her place, the red gone and replaced with silver and blue jewelry over tight, monochromatic clothes. 

“I was scared,” he said, hesitant to admit it especially since he could remember the previous night in pieces but it was mostly him revealing all of his insecurities and concerns that he would have otherwise kept locked up. Still, he wanted to speak to Jareth about all of it, knowing that the Goblin King would extend the offer he always had and likely would continue: live in the Castle beyond the Goblin City in his Labyrinth, forever. Gently, Jareth picked him up from the ground, slightly shorter than him, but still stronger despite being far more lithe, and of course, he held an innate grace, a superiority above the peasants who happened to be anyone, royals he didn’t recognize included, that reminded him that Jareth was one of the only faerie in existence in any world since he was created at the dawn of the creations of the land. He had always been in the Labyrinth, although the Labyrinth hadn’t always been what it had become. 

In his arms, he dusted off the copious amounts of glitter on his shoulders, but decided to give up halfway through since it was going nowhere and he really needed some affection, some contact. He closed his eyes, refusing to cry again after spilling more tears than Alice had when he met the wretched child the first time. He hated her, he hated Wonderland, and everyone who lived there, the Red Queen was especially singled out, but the others could suffer and die for all he cared. 

“Our Grace,” he whispered, Jareth’s long hair pulled back in a french braid down his back. He tucked himself against his shoulder and neck and remained there. “Our Grace is still in the Enchanted Forest. We need to gather her… and then we will live with you, we’ll go home with you and stay _ for all of eternity _ .” 

“I will rest you just beyond the barrier of your cottage, you shall gather the child--” 

“ _ Our daughter _ ,” he corrected absently. 

“Of course. You shall gather  _ our daughter _ , and I shall arrive when the moon is at its peak. Then, we’ll depart. We’ll go home, together.” 

The idea was wonderful, and the idea that he was leaving behind the Enchanted Forest, for once, it was almost freeing. Nobody cared there, everyone was so caught up in themselves that there was no room for others, but Jareth had been the only other person who ever took interest in him, well, the only other immortal that seemed to favour him. Rumplestiltskin had been somewhat of a friend for some time, he had even lived in his massive estate for a number of years, working exclusively as his finder of rare, magical items. But then he met Jareth and nothing mattered as much as him. Then a child was wished away, and Jareth brought her home just as he was waking the goblins and sending them from the throne room so he could jump, and he had to stay. 

Jefferson landed in the Enchanted Forest and saw Jareth above him in the trees, the form of a common yet absolutely stunning barn owl looked down at him and hooted before he flew down and around him. 

“You have glitter all over your wings, my King,” he said. The owl landed on his shoulder and pulled a strand of dirty hair from his face and tucked it purposefully behind his ear with his beak before flying into the sky and disappearing in a small portal that spun around his owl shape with a bit of fairy dust. He went towards his cottage, but nobody was there. He checked the neighbouring cabins and they too were empty. He gathered his things, packed Grace’s things and made sure to keep his damn hat on him before he started running, trying to find her. Nobody offered any information, and the people who seemed to know anything refused to speak with him. Apparently he had become an outcast and shame, a blight on their small and humble community. He ran around, trying to find Grace, calling out for her and rushing around the woods and into the next town. But then it was nightfall, and it was dangerous. 

The dark didn’t stop him, and he continued to rush closer towards Regina’s more guarded cities and he could see Grace in the distance, her little wrists in thick shackles, and he ran forward, using a little of what he had learned to snap the shatter the metal around her wrists and free her. Just as he grabbed her and held on, something swept over the village and… 

Jefferson woke up in a bed, and fell to the floor with the most horrendous pain in his head and he realized there were memories that didn’t belong to him in there. He knew that he had slowly gotten desperate, or rather, he had started to seek companionship and comfort in the only thing he had at the time, himself, and dealt with the trauma like he dealt with most things; ran away and pretended it never existed. He walked around the house, unsure of his odd clothing. He reached up to touch his short hair, which wasn’t correct, it hadn’t been like this before. He looked outside the windows of the odd building and saw the forest cut with a thick black line of stone, and he knew it was called asphalt, it was a road for cars to drive on, but he didn’t remember driving cars, he didn’t remember… until he  _ did _ . And that fear of not knowing had been blissful to the agony of having two lives, both with experiences that felt as real as the other, yet being able to have none of it. 

Like Wonderland, he couldn't get a single hat to work, and he felt the stale air, the magicless land that surrounded him. When he hopped down the carpeted (why was there so much of it? Why wood? Why not stone, which he thought to be more comfortable?) stairs and went to the front door. He ignored the odd things around the house and pulled the door open, and walked out. Except he didn’t walk out. He hit a barrier and no matter how strong or how long he attempted to force himself through, he couldn’t get through. He tried many more ways: jumping out the windows, burrowing beneath the house to come up on the outside of the house, climbing to the roof and attempting to climb down, or when he was feeling particularly bad (apparently he had something his new memories classified as ‘psychotic depression’ as well as ‘anxiety,’ ‘Post Traumatic Stress Disorder,’ and an ‘unspecified cluster A personality disorder’ that had him suffering from ‘psychosis’ -- he had no idea what any of these things meant despite knowing what they were called) he jumped from the roof. 

Everytime he jumped he wouldn’t hit the ground, he woke up in bed with a headache that hurt something fierce and the knowledge that he would never get out without magic, and then he hoped so hard that Jareth knew how to find him again, but he felt it more than he knew it that Jareth wasn’t able to come here. There was something wrong, something unnatural, and Jareth was a lot of things, but he was part of the many worlds’ natural orders. He realized that he was alone again. 

It all hurt worse when he realized the telescope could show him anything he wanted, and he wanted Grace. His daughter had never seemed happier, and she didn’t even know he existed from the looks of things. Her name wasn’t even Grace anymore. And he learns of the people in Storybrooke and his hate for Regina was cemented firmly. He would destroy her, even if he had to wait a hundred years, a thousand years, to do so. He wasn’t Jefferson, the mad mortal, he was Jefferson, the Mad Hatter, and he had a nifty power of immortality granted to him by the sweetest peach in any realm. He would be getting free and he would see to it that she suffered. 

After thirteen years, he was allowed outside, but he couldn’t break beyond the city lines, partially out of fear, and otherwise out of rage. He stuck to the forest, glad that he could at least look at the owls, so beautiful, he missed his owl so much. He watched Grace go to school everyday with the same knowledge that she didn’t know him, that she would hate him should her memories return and…. 

On a similar note, he didn’t realize that months of silence and isolation was nothing nearly as horrible as twenty-eight long, hard years of such a thing. It led to some of the worst decisions and worse break downs he had ever had as he plotted and planned only to end up in hysterics, running through his manor ready to act and then he was rejected. Then he felt magic again, faint but existent and he had hope. 

Through his telescope he saw Emma Swan, and he oversaw her and Regina speaking and spending time with one another. Now, was his need for revenge for ripping his daughter away from him twice over or his need to take his daughter, find Jareth, and have a happy life more important? Was it worth destroying the only piece of magic in the town just because the woman fancied Regina? He didn’t know, but since he was still stuck inside, he plotted and planned, decided the best course of action for everyone involved, and decided that he wouldn’t kill Emma, he would use her just like Regina, and she would give him a bit of her magic so he could travel away, to gather Jareth who could fix things. 

**Author's Note:**

> So, this may be a little bit of a power trip and I think I love it. 
> 
> Also, fun note, Jefferson will first appear in Chapter Four, and Chapter Two is almost exactly the same as what happened in the Pilot and a few other scenes from the Enchanted Forest, but it's written out in a long and drawn out way rather than a fun, forty-two minute show way.


End file.
